aze of wood a chilly evening made by no means unwelcome, he
left him alone. He soon returned, however, with a brighter expression,
which was explained by his saying, "I feared, on finding this room
empty, that my daughter had been sent for to a sick woman with whom she
has lately spent several days and nights, and that I could offer you
only the discomforts of a bachelor's establishment; but I find she is at
home, and will soon give us supper."

During the absence of his host, our Englishman had looked around with
increasing surprise at the contents of the parlor. The furniture was of
the most simple description, yet marked by a certain neatness and
gracefulness of arrangement, indicative, as he could not but think, of a
cultivated taste. The same mingling of even rude simplicity of material
and tasteful arrangement prevailed in the chamber to which his host now
conducted him, and where the luxury, for such he had learned to regard
it, of abundance of clear water and clean napkins awaited him. In a few
minutes after his return to the parlor a door was opened, through which
he obtained a view of an inner apartment, well lighted, and containing a
table so spread as to present no slight temptation to a traveller who
had not broken his fast since the morning meal. At the head of this
table stood a young woman of graceful form, whom his host introduced to
him as his daughter, Miss Grahame.

Mary Grahame's clear complexion, glowing with the hue of health, her
large and soft and dark gray eyes, her abundant glossy black hair, might
have won from the most fastidious some of that admiration given to
personal beauty; but in truth Horace Danforth had grown indifferent as
well as fastidious, and it was not until in after days he had seen the
complexion glow and the dark eyes kindle with feeling, that he said to
himself, "She is beautiful!" To the fascination of a peculiarly
graceful, gentle, yet earnest manner, he was, however, more quickly
susceptible. During this first evening, the chief emotion excited in his
mind was surprise at the style of conversation and manner, the
acquaintance with books and with _les bien-seances_ which marked these
inhabitants of a log cabin in the western wilds--these denizens of a
half-savage life.

A day of hard riding had induced such fatigue, that even the rare and
unexpected pleasure of communication with refined and cultivated minds,
could not keep Horace Danforth long from his pillow. As he ex