h me in the Festival of Thanksgiving which
now draws near. My head is whitened with many winters, and I shall see
them for the last time." Sylvester continued: "If they come--in this
calm season, which, so soft and sweet, seems the gentle dawn of the
coming world--we shall have, I feel, our last re-gathering on earth! But
they come not; my eyes are weary with watching afar off, and I cannot
yet discern that my children bear me in remembrance, in this grateful
season of the year. Why do they not come?"

The aged patriarch of the family bowed his head and was silent. From the
broom-corn the gentle voice stole again:

Why sings the robin in the wood?
For him her music is not shed:
Why blind-brook sparkle through the field?
He may be dead! he may be dead!

The murmur of Miriam's musical lamenting had scarcely died away on the
dreamy air, when there came hurrying forward from the garden--where she
had been tending the great thanksgiving pumpkin, which was her special
charge--the black servant of the household, Mopsey by name, who, with
her broad-fringed cap flying all abroad, and her great eyes rolling,
spoke out as she approached--

"Do hear dat, massa?"

"I hear nothing, Mopsey."

"Dere, don't you hear't now? Dey're coming!"

With faces of curiosity, and ears erect, they listened. There was a
peculiar sound in the air, and on closer attention they discerned, in
the stillness of the morning, the jingling traces of the stage-coach, on
the cross-road, through the fields.

"They are not coming," said old Sylvester, when the sound had died away
in the distance; "the stage has taken the other road."

"Dat may be, grandfather," Mopsey spoke up, "but for all dey may come.
Ugly Davis, when _he_ drive, don't always turn out of his way to come up
here. Dey may be on de corner."

As Mopsey spoke, two figures appeared on foot on the brow of the road,
which sloped down toward the Homestead, through a feathery range of
graceful locusts. They were too far off to be distinctly made out, but
it was to be inferred that they were travellers from a distance, for one
of them held against the light some sort of travelling bag or
portmanteau; one of them was in female dress, but this was all they
could as yet distinguish. Various conjectures were ventured as to their
special character. They were unquestionably making for the Homestead,
and it was to be reasonably supposed they were Peabodys, for strangers
were rare u