s and think of something else."

He patted her head with assumed carelessness, and was passing her by;
but she stopped him.

"Ah! there it is--I am always to be a child! I am to run down-stairs
and think of something else, while you go and shut yourself up to
ponder over this affair. But I will not be shut out; I will go with
you;--come!"

In playful force she drew him to their room, and closed the door.

"Now, sit down, and tell me the whole story. Why, how grave and pale
it has made you look! But never mind; we'll find out a plan to help the
poor people."

He gave some inarticulate assent, which checked her by its coldness,
sank on the chair she placed, and folded his fingers tightly in one
another, so that Agatha could not even strengthen herself in the bold
projects she was about to communicate, by stealing her own into her
husband's hand. However, she placed herself on the floor at his feet, in
the attitude of a Circassian beauty; or--she accidentally thought--not
unlike a Circassian slave.

"Begin, please! I must hear about these mines."

"I doubt if you could understand,--at least with the few explanations I
am able to give you at present."

"Nevertheless, I'll try. Why are the poor men starving in this way?"

"You heard but now. Because the mines were first opened on a
speculation, worked carelessly--dishonestly I fear--till the
speculator's money failed, and the vein stopped. Then the miners being
thrown out of employ were reduced to great distress, as this man tells
me."

"But why should he have come here after your father?"

"And," continued Nathanael, in a quick and rather inexplicable
correlative, "the mines were lately sold as waste land. Anne Valery
bought them."

"Why did she do that?"

"Out of charity; that she might begin some employment--flax-growing, I
think--to find food for the poor people. There the tale's ended, my Lady
Inquisitive. Will you go down to my sisters?"

"Not yet. I want to talk to you a little--a very little longer. May I?"

And she drooped her head, blushing as the young will blush over the same
charitable feeling which the old and hardened ostentatiously parade.

Mr. Harper gazed hopelessly around, as if longing any means of escape
and solitude. His wife saw him and was pained.

"What--are you tired of me?"

"No, no, dear, Only I am so busy--and have so many things to think about
just now."

"Tell me some of them."

"What--tell you all my business mysteri