ering crowd.

The two women chatted together in the stern of Jim's boat, or sat in
silence, as if they were enchanted, watching the changing shores, while
the great shadows of the woods deepened upon them. They had never seen
anything like it. It was a new world--God's world, which man had not
marred.

At last they heard the barking of a dog, and, looking far up among the
woods, they caught the vision of a new building. The boys in the boats
behind yelled with delight. Ample in its dimensions and fair in its
outlines, there stood the little woman's home. Her eyes filled with
tears, and she hid them on Miss Snow's shoulder.

"Be ye disap'inted, little woman?" inquired Jim, tenderly.

"Oh, no."

"Feelin's a little too many fur ye?"

The little woman nodded, while Miss Snow put her arm around her neck and
whispered.

"A woman is a curi's bein'," said Jim. "She cries when she's tickled,
an' she laughs when she's mad."

"I'm not mad," said the little woman, bursting into a laugh, and lifting
her tear-burdened eyes to Jim.

"An' then," said Jim, "she cries and laughs all to oncet, an'a feller
don't know whether to take off his jacket or put up his umberell."

This quite restored the "little woman," and her eyes were dry and merry
as the boat touched the bank, and the two women were helped on shore.
Before the other boats came up, they were in the house, with the
delighted Turk at their heels, and Mike Conlin's wife courtseying before
them.

It was a merry night at Number Nine. Jim's wife became the mistress at
once. She knew where everything was to be found, as well as if she had
been there for a year, and played the hostess to Mr. and Mrs. Balfour as
agreeably as if her life had been devoted to the duties of her
establishment.

Mr. Balfour could not make a long stay in the woods, but had determined
to leave his wife there with the boys. His business was pressing at
home, and he had heard something while at Sevenoaks that made him uneasy
on Mr. Benedict's account. The latter had kept himself very quiet while
at the wedding, but his intimacy with one of Mr. Balfour's boys had been
observed, and there were those who detected the likeness of this boy,
though much changed by growth and better conditions, to the little Harry
Benedict of other days. Mr. Balfour had overheard the speculations of
the villagers on the strange Mr. Williams who had for so long a time
been housed with Jim Fenton, and the utterance of susp