the topic at present handled was a highly popular and frequent one � the personal character of mrs the owner of the surrounding woods and groves my brother in law told me and i no reason to doubt it said that she d sit down to her dinner with a frock hardly higher than her elbows oh you wicked woman he said to himself when he first see her you go to your church and sit and kneel as if your knee were with very saint s and tell off your hear us good lords like a business man counting money and yet you can eat your such a figure as that whether she s a character by this time i can t say but i don t care the who the man is that s how she went on when my lived there did she do it in her husband s that i don t know � hardly i should think considering his temper ah here threw grieved remembrance into physical form by slowly his head to and letting his eyes water that man not if the angels of heaven come down he said shall you do another day s work for me yes � he d say anything � anything and would as soon take a winged creature s name in vain as yours or mine i well now i must get these home along and to morrow thank god i must see about using em an old woman now entered upon the scene she was mr s servant and passed a great part of her time in crossing the yard between the house door and the shed whither she had come now for fuel she had two one of a soft and kind she used in doors when assisting about the parlor or up stairs the other with stiff lines and comers when she was bustling among the men in the house or out of doors ah said john it do do my heart good to see a old woman like you so and stirring when i bear in mind that after fifty one year counts as two did afore but your smoke didn t rise this morning till twenty minutes past seven by my and that s late if you was a full sized man john people might take notice of your scornful but your growing up was such a and scanty business that really a woman couldn t feel hurt if you were to spit fire and itself at her here she added holding out a to one of the workmen from which a long black � here s something for thy breakfast and if you want tea you must fetch it from in doors mr is late this morning said the bottom yes was a dark dawn said mrs even when i op the door so late as i was you couldn t have told poor men from gentlemen or john from a l and i don t think s slept at all well the to night he s anxious his and i know what that is for i ve cried for my own when the old woman had gone said he ll fret his green if he don t soon hear from that maid of his well learning is better than houses and lands but to keep a maid at school tiu he is taller out of than her mother was in em � tis tempting providence no time ago that she was a little play ward girl said young i can mind her mother said the hollow always a delicate piece her touch upon your hand was as soft and cool as wind she was for the and had it beautifully fine just about the time that i was out of my � ay and a long twas i served that master of mine six years and three hundred and fourteen days the hollow pronounced the days with emphasis as if considering their number they were a rather more remarkable fact than the years mr s father walked with her at one time said old but mr won her she was a child of a woman and would cry like rain if so be he her whenever she and her husband came to a in their walks together he d take her up like a half penny doll and put her over without her a speck and if he keeps the daughter so long at boarding school he ll make her as as her mother was but here he comes just before this moment had seen crossing the court from his door he was carrying an open letter in his hand and came straight to his gloom of the preceding night had quite gone rd no sooner made up my mind to go and see why grace didn t come or write than i get a letter from her � wednesday my dear father says she i m coming home to morrow that s to day but i didn t think it worth while to write long beforehand the little rascal and didn t she now as you are going to market to day with your apple trees why not join me and grace there and we ll drive home all together f the he made the proposal with cheerful energy he was hard ly the same man as the man of the small dark ever it happens that even among the the tendency to he cheered is stronger than the tendency to he cast down and a so l stands permanently less than that of the sea of into which it is thrown though not replied to this suggestion with something like alacrity there was not much that grounds for cutting off her hair were substantial enough if s eyes had been a reason for keeping it on as for the timber merchant it was plain that his invitation had been 