est parlor, where his wife had her lady friends to tea, and
which boasted a real Turkey carpet--the only one in town.

Eben Merritt in these great hunting-boots, clad as to the rest of him
in stout old buckskin and rough coat and leather waistcoat, with his
fair and ruddy face well covered by his golden furze of beard, which
hung over his breast, lounged heavily on the hearth, and waited with
a noble patience, eschewing all desire of fishing, until this pale,
grave little lad should declare his errand.

But Jerome, with the great Squire standing waiting before him, felt
suddenly tongue-tied. He was not scared, though his heart beat fast;
it was only that the words would not come.

The Squire watched him kindly with his bright, twinkling blue eyes
under his brush of yellow hair. "Take your time," said he, and threw
one arm up over the mantel-shelf, and stood as if it were easier for
him than to sit, and indeed it might have been so, for from his
stalking of woods and long motionless watches at the lair of game, he
had had good opportunities to accustom himself to rest at ease upon
his feet.

Jerome might have spoken sooner had the Squire moved away from before
him and taken his eyes from his face, for sometimes too ardent
attention becomes a citadel for storming to a young and modest soul.
However, at last he turned his own head aside, and his black eyes
from the Squire's keen blue eyes, and would then have spoken had not
the door opened suddenly and little Lucina come in on a run and
stopped short a minute with timid finger to her mouth, and eyes as
innocently surprised as a little rabbit's.

Lucina, being unhooded to-day, showed all her shower of shining
yellow curls, which covered her little shoulders and fell to her
childish waist. Her fat white neck and dimpled arms were bare and
gleaming through the curls, and she wore a lace-trimmed pinafore, and
a frock of soft blue wool scalloped with silk around the hem,
revealing below the finest starched pantalets, and little morocco
shoes.

Squire Eben laughed fondly, to see her start and hesitate, as a man
will laugh at the pretty tricks of one he loves. "Come here, Pretty,"
he cried. "There's nothing for you to be afraid of. This is only poor
little Jerome Edwards. Come and shake hands with him," and bade her
thus, thinking another child might encourage the boy.

With that Lucina hesitated no longer, but advanced, smiling softly,
with the little lady-ways her moth