dlemount'm;
they join together again just a little piece farther on."

The girl and the woman in their parlance replaced the letter 'r' by
vowel sounds almost too obscure to be represented, except where it
came last in a word before a word beginning with a vowel; there it
was annexed to the vowel by a strong liaison, according to the custom
universal in rural New England.

"Oh, do they?" said Mrs. Lander.

"Yes'm," answered the girl. "It's a kind of tu'nout in the wintatime; or
I guess that's what made it in the beginning; sometimes folks take one
hand side and sometimes the other, and that keeps them separate; but
they're really the same road, 'm."

"Thank you," said Mrs. Lander, and she pushed her husband to make him
say something, too, but he remained silently intent upon the child's
prettiness, which her blue eyes seemed to illumine with a light of their
own. She had got hold of the door, now, and was using it as if it was
a piece of drapery, to hide not only the tear in her gown, but somehow
both her bare feet. She leaned out beyond the edge of it; and then, at
moments she vanished altogether behind it.

Since Mr. Lander would not speak, and made no sign of starting up his
horse, Mrs. Lander added, "I presume you must be used to havin' people
ask about the road, if it's so puzzlin'."

"O, yes'm," returned the girl, gladly. "Almost every day, in the
summatime."

"You have got a pretty place for a home, he'e," said Mrs. Lander.

"Well, it will be when it's finished up." Without leaning forward
inconveniently Mrs. Lander could see that the partitions of the house
within were lathed, but not plastered, and the girl looked round as if
to realize its condition and added, "It isn't quite finished inside."

"We wouldn't, have troubled you," said Mrs. Lander, "if we had seen
anybody to inquire of."

"Yes'm," said the girl. "It a'n't any trouble."

"There are not many otha houses about, very nea', but I don't suppose
you get lonesome; young folks are plenty of company for themselves, and
if you've got any brothas and sistas--"

"Oh," said the girl, with a tender laugh, "I've got eva so many of
them!"

There was a stir in the bushes about the carriage, and Mrs. Lander was
aware for an instant of children's faces looking through the leaves at
her and then flashing out of sight, with gay cries at being seen. A boy,
older than the rest, came round in front of the horse and passed out of
sight at the corner of th