es with tall pillars in front of them,
now falling into decay and slipping out of plumb. There were shops that
had evidently been closed for years, with not even a sign "To Let" in
the windows. Our dinner was cooked for us in a boarding-house, by a
brisk young lady of about fifteen years, whose mother had gone to
Machias for a day in the gay world. With one exception that pleasant
young lady was the only thing in Whitneyville that did not have an air
of having been left behind.

The exception was the establishment of Mr. Cornelius D----, whose
"General Store" beside the bridge was still open for business, and
whose big white house stood under the elm-trees at the corner of the
road opposite the church, with bright windows, fresh-painted walls, and
plenty of flowers blooming around it. He was walking in the yard,
dressed in a black broadcloth frock-coat, with a black satin necktie
and a collar with pointed ends,--an old-fashioned Gladstonian garb.
When I heard him speak I knew where he came from. It was the rich
accent of Killarney, just as I had heard it on the Irish lakes two
summers ago. But sixty years had passed since the young Cornelius had
left the shores of the River Laune and come to dwell by the
Kowahshiscook. He had grown up with the place; had run the lumber-mill
and the first railroad that hauled the lumber from the mill down to
tide-water; had become the owner of the store and the proprietor of
some sixteen miles of timber-land along the river-front; had built the
chief house of the village and given his children a capital education;
and there he still dwelt, with his wife from Killarney, and with his
tall sons and daughters about him, contented and happy, and not at all
disposed to question the beneficent order of the universe. We had
plenty of good talk that afternoon and evening, chiefly about the Old
Country, and I had to rub up my recollections of Ross Castle and
Kenmare House and all the places around Lough Leane, in order to match
the old man's memory. He was interested in our expedition, too. He had
often been far into the woods looking after his lumber. But I doubt
whether he quite understood what it was that drew the boy and me on our
idle voyage from Nicatous to the sea.

HIS OTHER ENGAGEMENT

Among the annals of the Petrine Club, which has for its motto the wise
words of St. Peter, "I go a-fishing," there are several profitable
tales. Next to the story of Beekman De Peyster's fatal su