over the two or three bits of her childish music that she could recall, till Mr. Douglass came in and they were summoned to sit down to supper; which Mrs. Douglass introduced by telling her guests "they must take what they could get, for she had made fresh bread and cake and pies for them two or three times, and she wa'n't a going to do it again.'

Her table was abundantly spread however, and with most exquisite neatness, and everything was of excellent quality, saving only certain matters which call for a free hand in the use of material. Fleda thought the pumpkin pies must have been made from that vaunted stock which is said to want no eggs nor sugar, and the cakes she told Mrs. Rossitur afterwards would have been good if half the flour had been left out and the other ingredients doubled. The deficiency in one kind however was made up by superabundance in another; the table was stocked with such wealth of crockery that one could not imagine any poverty in what was to go upon it. Fleda hardly knew how to marshal the confusion of plates which grouped themselves around her cup and saucer, and none of them might be dispensed with. There was one set of little glass dishes for one kind of sweetmeat, another set of ditto for another kind; an army of tiny plates to receive and shield the tablecloth from the dislodged cups of tea, saucers being the conventional drinking vessels; and there were the standard bread and butter plates, which be sides their proper charge of bread and butter and beef and cheese, were expected, Fleda knew, to receive a portion of every kind of cake that might happen to be on the table It was a very different thing however from Miss Anastasia's tea-table or that of Miss Flora Quackenboss. Fleda enjoyed the whole time without difficulty.

Mr. Douglass readily agreed to the transfer of Philetus's

services.

"He's a good boy!" said Earl,-"he's a good boy; he's as good a kind of a boy as you need to have. He wants tellin'; most boys want tellin'; but he'll do when he is told, and he means to do right.'

"How long do you expect your uncle will be gone?" said Mrs. Douglass.

"I do not know," said Fleda.

"Have you heard from him since he left ?”

"Not since I came home," said Fleda. "Mr. Douglass, what is the first thing to be done about the maple trees in the sugar season?"

Why, you calculate to try makin' sugar in the spring?" "Perhaps at any rate I should like to know about it." "Well I should think you would," said Earl, “and it's easy done there ain't nothin' easier, when you know the right way to set to work about it; and there's a fine lot of sugar trees on the old farm-I recollect of them sugar trees as long ago as when I was a boy-I've helped to work them afore now, but there's a good many years since-has made me a leetle older--but the first thing you want is a man and a team, to go about and empty the buckets-the buckets must be emptied every day, and then carry it down to the house."

Yes, I know," said Fleda, "but what is the first thing to be done to the trees?"

"Why la! 'tain't much to do to the trees-all you've got to do is to take an axe and chip a bit out and stick a chip a leetle way into the cut for to dreen the sap, and set a trough under, and then go on to the next one, and so on; -you may make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree, and one or two cuts in the north side, if the tree's big enough, and if it ain't, only make one or two cuts in the south side of the tree; and for the sap to run good it had ought to be that kind o' weather when it freezes in the day and thaws by night;-I would say !-when it friz in the night and thaws in the day; the sap runs more bountifully in that kind o' weather."

It needed little from Fleda to keep Mr. Douglass at the maple trees till supper was ended; and then as it was already sundown he went to harness the sleigh.

It was a comfortable one, and the horses if not very handsome nor bright-curried were well fed and had good heart to their work. A two-mile drive was before them, and with no troublesome tongues or eyes to claim her attention Fleda enjoyed it fully. In the soft clear winter twilight when heaven and earth mingle so gently, and the stars look forth brighter and cheerfuller than ever at another time, they slid along over the fine roads, too swiftly, towards home; and Fleda's thoughts as easily and swiftly

slipped away from Mr. Douglass and maple sugar and Philetus and an unfilled wood-yard and an empty flour-barrel, and revelled in the pure ether. A dark rising ground covered with wood sometimes rose between her and the western horizon; and then a long stretch of snow, only less pure, would leave free view of its unearthly white light, dimmed by no exhalation, a gentle, mute, but not the less eloquent, witness to Earth of what Heaven must be. But the sleigh stopped at the gate, and Fleda's musings came home.

Good-night!" said Earl, in reply to their thanks and adieus;—“'tain't anything to thank a body for—let me know when you're a goin' into the sugar making and I'll come and help you.'

"How sweet a pleasant méssage may make an unmusical tongue," said Fleda, as she and Hugh made their way up to the house.

“We had a stupid enough afternoon," said Hugh. “But the ride home was worth it all!"

CHAPTER XXVI.

'Tis merry, 'tis merry, in good green wood,

So blithe Lady Alice is singing;

On the beech's pride, and the oak's brown side,

Lord Richard's axe is ringing.

LADY OF THE LAKE.

PHILETUS

HILETUS came, and was inducted into office and the little room immediately; and Fleda felt herself eased of a burthen. Barby reported him stout and willing, and he proved it by what seemed a perverted inclination for bearing the most enormous logs of wood he could find into the kitchen.

"He will hurt himself!" said Fleda.

66

"I'll protect him!-against anything but buckwheat batter," said Barby with a grave shake of her head. Lazy folks takes the most pains, I tell him. But it would be good to have some more ground, Fleda, for Philetus says he don't care for no dinner when he has griddles to breakfast, and there ain't anything much cheaper than that."

"Aunt Lucy, have you any change in the house?" said Fleda that same day.

"There isn't but three and sixpence," said Mrs. Rossitur with a pained conscious look. "What is wanting, dear ?” Only candles-Barby has suddenly found we are out, and she won't have any more made before to-morrow. Never mind !"

"There is only that," repeated Mrs. Rossitur. "Hugh has a little money due to him from last summer, but he hasn't been able to get it yet. You may take that, dear." 'No," said Fleda,-- we mustn't. We might want it

more."

We can sit in the dark for once," said Hugh," and try

to make an uncommon display of what Dr. Quackenboss calls sociality.""

"No," said Fleda, who had stood busily thinking,-" I am going to send Philetus down to the post-office for the paper and when it comes I am not to be balked of reading it-I've made up my mind! We'll go right off into the woods and get some pine knots, Hugh-come! They make a lovely light. You get us a couple of baskets and the hatchet-I wish we had two--and I'll be ready in no time. That'll do!"

It is to be noticed that Charlton had provided against any future deficiency of news in his family. Fleda skipped. away and in five minutes returned arrayed for the expedition, in her usual out-of-door working trim, namely, an old dark merino cloak, almost black, the effect of which was continued by the edge of an old dark mousseline below, and rendered decidedly striking by the contrast of a large whitish yarn shawl worn over it; the whole crowned with a little close-fitting hood made of some old silver-grey silk, shaped tight to the head, without any bow or furbelow to break the outline. But such a face within side of it! She came almost dancing into the room,

"This is Miss Ringgan !-as she appeared when she was going to see the pine trees. Hugh, don't you wish you had a picture of me ?"

"I have got a tolerable picture of you, somewhere,” said Hugh.

"This is somebody very different from the Miss Ringgan that went to see Mrs. Evelyn, I can tell you,” Fleda went on gayly. "Do you know, aunt Lucy, I have made up my mind that my visit to New York was a dream, and the dream is nicely folded away with my silk dresses. Now I must go tell that precious Philetus about the post-office--I am so comforted, aunt Lucy, whenever I see that fellow staggering into the house under a great log of wood! I have not heard anything in a long time so pleasant as the ringing strokes of his axe in the yard. Isn't life made up

of little things!"

Why don't you put a better pair of shoes on ?” "Can't afford it, Mrs. Rossitur! You are extravagant !" "Go and put on my India-rubbers.”