eyed woman, only that her sternness and reserve seemed to
increase with her age, and a few silver threads appeared in her raven
hair.

I have said that it was three miles from the Blount place to the nearest
house. This was at the toll-gate, which was kept by a man named Curtis.
He was a person of progressive tastes, supposed to have aristocratic
inclinations. As he was a well-to-do man, these were evinced in a
Brussels carpet and a piano-forte which figured in his small parlor, and
by his sending his only child, a daughter, to a city boarding-school.
She returned, as might have been expected, with ideas and desires far
beyond the hill-side cottage where she was condemned to vegetate. Now
she was very pretty, with dancing blue eyes and a profusion of golden
curls; she had, too, a most winning manner, hard for any one to resist;
and these personal attractions, added to style of dress that had never
been seen or imagined among the simple country-folk, rendered her a
most important person, so that no "tea-fight" or merry-making was
complete without Nelly Curtis.

However, it might have been long enough before the recluse young Blounts
would have encountered the gay little belle, had it not been that they
were of necessity obliged to pass through the toll-gate, and sometimes
forced to stop there. From some of her friends Nelly heard what a
secluded life the two brothers led, and how especially averse they
seemed to female society, and, with the appetite for conquest of a true
flirt, she at once determined on adding them to the list of her victims.
It was not long before she had an opportunity for beginning her wiles.

One fine spring morning, John Blount started on horseback to go to the
village. The sun shone very brightly, the hedge-rows blushed with early
blossoms, and the birds sang a song of rejoicing. It was one of those
clear, soft days when one feels new life and vigor at the thought of the
coming summer. Arrived at the toll-gate, John was surprised at seeing no
one there to open it; he waited a moment, somewhat impatiently, and then
called out,--

"Holloa!"

At this, as if startled at his voice, there appeared in the cottage
door-way a slender, rosy-cheeked maiden, who looked blooming and
graceful enough to be the incarnation of the fresh and beautiful May.

"Excuse me," she said, with a little curtsy; "I did not see you come
up."

This, as Nelly informed the friend to whom she related the adventure,
was a