e, my dear?"

"You and Suan Isco and Firm--those are all I have any knowledge of."

"'Tis a plenty--to my mind, almost too many. My plan is to be a good
friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me. Rest you quite
satisfied with three, Miss Rema. I have lived a good many years, and I
never had more than three friends worth a puff of my pipe."

"But one's own relations, Uncle Sam--people quite nearly related to us:
it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know."

"Do I, my dear? Then I wish that I did. Except one's own father and
mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them. My own brother
took a twist against me because I tried to save him from ruin; and if
any man ever wished me ill, he did. And I think that your father had the
same tale to tell. But there! I know nothing whatever about that."

"Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to tell
me, or rather I demand it. I am old enough now, and I am certain my dear
father would have wished me to know every thing. Whatever it was, I am
sure that he was right; and until I know that, I shall always be the
most miserable of the miserable."

The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning,
and his broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles of
inquiry. He quite forgot his level and his great post in the river, and
tilted back his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on his big brown arm.
"Lord bless me!" he said, "what a young gal you are! Or, at least, what
a young Miss Rema. What good can you do, miss, by making of a rout? Here
you be in as quiet a place as you could find, and all of us likes
and pities you. Your father was a wise man to settle you here in this
enlightened continent. Let the doggoned old folk t'other side of the
world think out their own flustrations. A female young American you are
now, and a very fine specimen you will grow. 'Tis the finest thing to be
on all God's earth."

"No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an Englishwoman.
The Americans may be more kind and generous, and perhaps my father
thought so, and brought me here for that reason. And I may be glad to
come back to you again when I have done what I am bound to do. Remember
that I am the last of seven children, and do not even know where the
rest are buried."

"Now look straight afore you, missy. What do you see yonner?" The Sawyer
was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long interruption.