ss your
heart, I bayn't idle when I be at home."

"And pray where is your home?" asked Henry, looking up a moment, not
that he cared one straw.

"If you please, sir, I do come from Cairnhope village. I'm old Nat
Dence's daughter. There's two of us, and I'm the youngest. Squire sent
me in here, because miss said Hillsborough girls wasn't altogether
honest. She is a dear kind young lady; but I do pine for home and the
farm at times; and frets about the young calves: they want so much
looking after. And sister, she's a-courting, and can't give her mind to
'em as should be. I'll carry the board for you, sir."

"All right," said Henry carelessly; but, as they went along, he thought
to himself, "So a skilled workman passes for a gentleman with rustics:
fancy that!"

On their return to the drawing-room, Henry asked for a high wooden
stool, or chair, and said it would be as well to pin some newspapers
over the carpet. A high stool was soon got from the kitchen, and
Jael went promptly down on her knees, and crawled about, pinning the
newspapers in a large square.

Henry stood apart, superior, and thought to himself, "So much for
domestic servitude. What a position for a handsome girl--creeping about
on all fours!"

When all was ready, he drew some arabesque forms with his pencil on the
board. He then took an exquisite little saw he had invented for this
work, and fell upon the board with a rapidity that, contrasted with
his previous nonchalance, looked like fury. But he was one of your fast
workmen. The lithe saw seemed to twist in his hand like a serpent,
and in a very short time he had turned four feet of the board into
open-work. He finished the edges off with his cutting tools, and there
was a transformation as complete as of linen cloth turned lace.

Grace was delighted. "Shall I ever be able to do that?"

"In half a day. That's not carving; that's trickery. The tool does it
all. Before I invented this saw, a good workman would have been a day
over that; but now YOU can do it in half an hour, when you are master of
the instrument. And now I'll show you honest work." He took one of the
knobs and examined it; then sawed off a piece, and worked on the rest
so cunningly with his various cutters, that it grew into a human face
toward their very eyes. He even indicated Jael Dence's little flat cap
by a means at once simple and ingenious. All the time he was working the
women's eyes literally absorbed him; only those of