ers was a
meek, monotonous countenance; but with a certain look of concentration.
Altogether, a humble beauty of the old rural type; healthy, cleanly,
simple, candid, yet demure.

Henry came in, and the young lady received him with a manner very
different from that she had worn down at the works. She was polite, but
rather stiff and dignified.

He sat down at her request, and, wondering at himself, entered on the
office of preceptor. He took up the carving-tools, and explained the use
of several; then offered, by way of illustration, to work on something.

"That will be the best way, much," said Grace quietly, but her eye
sparkled.

"I dare say there's some lumber to be found in a great house like this?"

"Lumber? why, there's a large garret devoted to it. Jael, please take
him to the lumber-room."

Jael fixed her needle in her work, and laid it down gently on a table
near her, then rose and led the way to the lumber-room.

In that invaluable repository Henry soon found two old knobs lying on
the ground (a four-poster had been wrecked hard by) and a piece of deal
plank jutting out of a mass of things. He pulled hard at the plank; but
it was long, and so jammed in by miscellaneous articles, that he could
not get it clear.

Jael looked on demurely at his efforts for some time; then she suddenly
seized the plank a little higher up. "Now, pull," said she, and gave
a tug like a young elephant: out came the plank directly, with a great
rattle of dislocated lumber.

"Well, you are a strong one," said Henry.

"Oh, one and one makes two, sir," replied the vigorous damsel, modestly.

"That is true, but you threw your weight into it like a workman. Now
hand me that rusty old saw, and I'll cut off as much as we want."

While he was sawing off a piece of the plank, Jael stood and eyed him
silently a while. But presently her curiosity oozed out. "If you please,
sir, be you really a working man?"

"Why, what else should I be?" was the answer, given rather brusquely.

"A great many gentlefolks comes here as is no better dressed nor you
be."

"Dress is no rule. Don't you go and take me for a gentleman, or we
sha'n't agree. Wait till I'm as arrogant, and empty, and lazy as they
are. I am a workman, and proud of it."

"It's naught to be ashamed on, that's certain," said Jael. "I've carried
many a sack of grain up into our granary, and made a few hundred-weight
of cheese and butter, besides house-work and farm-work. Ble