and quite some few
minutes before she came back herself, he shuffled in again, carrying
under his coat a roll of yellow paper, which he thrust into my hand
with a gratified leer, saying:

"There it is. I was a gay young lad in those days, and could go and
come with the best. Read it, sir, read it; and if Maria says anything
against it, tell her it was written long before she was born and when
I was as pert as she is now, and a good deal more observing."

Chuckling with satisfaction, he turned away, and had barely
disappeared in the hall when she came in and saw me with the roll in
my hand.

"Well! I declare!" she exclaimed; "and has he been bringing you that?
What ever shall I do with him and his everlasting manuscript? You will
pardon him, sir; he is ninety and upwards, and thinks everybody is as
interested in the story of that old house as he is himself."

"And I, for one, am," was my hasty reply. "If the writing is at all
legible, I am anxious to read it. You won't object, will you?"

"Oh, no," was her good-humored rejoinder. "I won't object; I only hate
to have father's mind roused on this subject, because he is sure to be
sick after it. But now that you have the story, read it; whether you
will think as he did, on a certain point, is another question. I
don't; but then father always said I would never believe ill of
anybody."

Her smile certainly bore out her words, it was so good-tempered and
confiding; and pleased with her manner in spite of myself, I accepted
her invitation to make use of her own little parlor, and sat down in
the glow of a brilliant autumn afternoon to read this old-time
history.

* * * * *

Will Juliet be at home to-day? She must know that I am coming. When I
met her this morning, tripping back from the farm, I gave her a look
which, if she cares anything about me, must have told her that I would
be among the lads who would be sure to pay her their respects at early
candle-light. For I cannot resist her saucy pout and dancing dimples
any longer. Though I am barely twenty, I am a man, and one who is
quite forehanded and able to take unto himself a wife. Ralph
Urphistone has both wife and babe, and he was only twenty-one last
August. Why, then, should I not go courting, when the prettiest maid
that has graced the town for many a year holds out the guerdon of her
smiles to all who will vie for them?

To be sure, the fact that she has more than one wooer