about
finished yer visit t--or yer visitation, ez the pa'son calls it He, he,
he! Wall, Loralindy hev gone up steers ter the roof-room, an' it's about
time ter bar up the doors. Waal, joy go with ye, he, he, he! Come off,
Tige, _ye_ Bose, hyar! Cur'ous I can't 'larn them dogs no manners."

A dreary morrow ensued on the splendid night. The world was ful of
mists; the clouds were resolved into drizzling rain; every perspective
of expectation was restricted by the limited purlieus of the present.
The treasure-seekers digging here and there throughout the forest in
every nook in low ground, wherever a drift of the snowy blossoms might
glimmer, began to lose hope and faith. Now and again some iconoclastic
soul sought to stigmatize the whole rumor as a fable. More than one
visited the Byars cabin in the desperate hope that some chance word
might fall from the girl, giving a clue to the mystery.

By daylight the dreary little hut had no longer poetic or picturesque
suggestion. Bereft of the sheen and shimmer of the moonlight its aspect
had collapsed like a dream into the dullest realities. The door-yard was
muddy and littered; here the razor-back hogs rooted unrebuked; the
rail fence had fallen on one side, and it would seem that only their
attachment to home prevented them from wandering forth to be lost in the
wilderness; the clap-boards of the shiny roof were oozing and steaming
with dampness, and showed all awry and uneven; the clay and stick
chimney, hopelessly ont of plumb, leaned far from the wall.

Within it was not more cheerful; the fire smoked gustily into the
dim little room, illumined only by the flicker of the blaze and the
discouraged daylight from the open door, for the batten shutters of the
unglazed window were closed. The puncheon floor was grimy--the feet
that curiosity had led hither brought much red clay mire upon them. The
poultry, all wet and dispirited, ventured within and stood about the
door, now scuttling in sudden panic and with peevish squawks upon the
unexpected approach of a heavy foot. Loralinda, sitting at her spinning
wheel, was paler than ever, all her dearest illusions dashed into
hopeless fragments, and a promise which she did not value to one whom
she did not love quite perfect and intact.

The venerable grandmother sat propped with pillows in her arm-chair,
and now and again adjured the girl to "show some manners an' tell
the neighbors what they so honed to know." With the vehemence o