riginal!'"

"That's magnificins!" Rhoda exclaimed, with quiet delight; "who is
'fellow Mil,' Jedge?"

"Oh, that's the British nightingale. These American mocking-birds
surpass them as one of our Eastern Shore clippers outsails all the naval
powers of Europe."

"I've hearn 'The British Nightingale,'" Rhoda said, with a flash of her
eyes; "he was a blind man with green specticklers that sang at Nu-ark,
''ome, sweet 'ome'--that's the way he plonounced it--an' it affected of
him so, he had to drink a whole tumbler of water, an' Misc Somers,
spying around to see if he was the rale nightingale, she found it was
gin in that glass, and told about it."

Rhoda made even the minister laugh, as she indented her cheeks and cast
a sheep's glance at him and the Judge. He marvelled that such forest
English could be resented so little by his mind, but he thought,

"Never mind, she may have had no more lessons than the bird, whose
difficulty is even beautiful. But see! Mr. Milburn is wide awake. My
friend, how do you feel?"

"Better, better!" murmured Milburn. "I cannot lie here any more. There
is money, _money_, gentlemen, dependent on my getting about."

He started up with the greatest resolution and confidence, and fell upon
his head before he had left the coverlets.

"No, no!" said the Judge, as he and Tilghman picked Milburn up and
arranged him as before. "Your will is matched this time, my brave
son-in-law! You are back in the hut you have consumed, among the fires
thereof, and the avenging blast of Nassawongo furnace burns in your
veins and cools you in the mill-pond alternately. Lie there and repent
for the injury you have done a spotless one!"

If Meshach heard this it was never known, but the unconscious or
impulsive utterance strengthened the impression with Tilghman and Rhoda
that Vesta's marriage was not altogether voluntary, and produced on both
a feeling of deeper sympathy and respect for her.

"Judge," the young minister said, "do good for evil, if evil there has
been! I have given him my hand sincerely; perhaps you can relieve his
mind of some business care."

"Mr. Milburn," the Judge said, when he saw the resinous eyes roll
towards him again out of that swarthy face, now pale with weakness, "I
am out of a job now, and can work cheap. Let me do any errand for you."

A look of petulance, followed by one of inquiry, came up from Milburn's
eyes, and he pressed his head between his wrists, as if to bring back