to the kitchen!"

Lucy went out with fallen plumes. Mr. Clamp took his hat to go also.

"Don't go till I get you the notes," said Mrs. Kinloch.

As she brought them, he said, "I will send these by the next mail, with
instructions to collect."

While his hand was on the latch, she spoke again:--

"Mr. Clamp, did you ever look over the deed of the land we own about the
dam where the mill stands?"

"No, ma'am, I have never seen it."

"I wish you would have the land surveyed according to this title," she
said. "Quite privately, you know. Just have the line run, and let me know
about it. Perhaps it will be as well to send over to Riverbank and get
Gunter to do it; he will keep quiet about it."

Mr. Clamp stood still a moment. Here was a woman whom he was expecting to
lead like a child, but who on the other hand had fairly bridled and
saddled _him_, so that he was driven he knew not whither.

"Why do you propose this, may I ask, Mrs. Kinloch?"

"Oh, I have heard," she replied, carelessly, "that there was some error in
the surveys. Mr. Kinloch often talked of having it corrected, but, like
most men, put it off. Now, as we may sell the property, we shall want to
know what we have got."

"Certainly, Mrs. Kinloch, I will follow your prudent suggestions,"--adding
to himself, as he walked away, "I shall have to be tolerably shrewd to get
ahead of that woman. I wonder what she is driving at."

CHAPTER IV.

Ralph Hardwick was the village blacksmith. His shop stood on the bank of
the river, not far from the dam. The great wheel below the flume rolled
all day, throwing over its burden of diamond drops, and tilting the
ponderous hammer with a monotonous clatter. What a palace of wonders to
the boys was that grim and sooty shop!--the roar of the fires, as they
were fed by the laboring bellows; the sound of water, rushing, gurgling,
or musically dropping, heard in the pauses; the fiery shower of sparkles
that flew when the trip-hammer fell; and the soft and glowing mass held by
the smith's tongs with firm grasp, and turning to some form of use under
his practised eye! How proud were the young amateur blacksmiths when the
kind-hearted owner of the shop gave them liberty to heat and pound a bit
of nail-rod, to mend a skate or a sled-runner, or sharpen a pronged fish-
spear! Still happier were they, when, at night, with his sons and nephew,
they were allowed to huddle on the forge, sitting on the bottoms of old
buckets or b