ck again! I won't annoy you with words, but you know
what my feelings are for you all the same. Now, seal the bargain, Dexie,"
and he turned her face to his.

Well, the perversity of girls! is there anything equal to it? Must it
really be confessed that the girl who thought that one little stolen kiss
was worth crying over should raise her pretty mouth to receive a much
longer caress; yes, and enjoy it, too! But there! come to think of it, that
first kiss in the parlor was a one-sided affair, reluctantly received; and
a one-sided kiss is like--is like--well, whatever is it like? We give it
up!

CHAPTER XII.

Returning home by way of Eastport, Mr. Sherwood took passage in a vessel
bound for Londonderry, a small seaport on the Bay of Fundy, and from there
he travelled by stage to Truro, where he took the train for Halifax.

While on the train an incident took place which, while affording amusement
for the passengers, led to after-results that were quite surprising to the
Sherwoods.

It seems that a countryman, hailing from Prince Edward Island, had
accompanied the vessel in which he had shipped the surplus oats and
potatoes that had grown on his farm, and the vessel had arrived in Halifax
a few days previously. This being his first trip "abroad," he had
determined to see all the sights which the city of Halifax afforded while
he waited for the vessel to discharge her cargo and prepare for the return
trip to Charlottetown.

His innocent air soon attracted the attention of some sharpers, or
"confidence men," as they would have been termed in a later day, and
thinking he had met the "gentry for shure" in the well-dressed scamps that
were so friendly to him, the countryman willingly accompanied them to an
uptown resort, where he was treated to drugged liquor, and then robbed of
the tidy sum that the sale of his produce had brought him. Then, adding
insult to injury, they had taken him to the depot, and, placing a ticket
for Truro in his hatband, they put him on board the cars and left him to
his fate.

He was put off the train at Truro in a dazed condition, and passed the
night in some out-of-the-way corner of the freight house, where he slept
off the effect of the liquor.

His alarm and astonishment when he came to himself and found he was alone
and in a strange place, and with empty pockets, was both painful and
ludicrous to witness. His distress seemed all the greater in that he had
not the faintest idea