d dame,
in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and
proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her."

So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making
"salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that,
if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour
as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel'
again."

From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the
family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of
one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children
waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an
intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle
encountered on her travels.

Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr.
and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile
farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named
John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young
ladies, the party set forth.

The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through
woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the
less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden
hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a
veritable relic of Prince Charlie.

The forest road ended abruptly in a wide glade, where stood the shanty
occupied by the miners, a shed for the donkeys employed in dragging out
the coal, and, finally, the ruinous tunnel leading horizontally into a
disused mine. The wooden tram-way on which the coal-car had formerly run
still remained; and cautiously walking upon this causeway through the
quagmire of mud, Miselle and Mr. Williams penetrated some distance into
the mine, but saw nothing more wonderful than mould and other fungi,
bats and toads. Retracing their steps, they followed the tram-way to its
termination at the top of a high bank, down which the coals were shot
into a cart stationed below. This coal is of an inferior quality,
bituminous, and largely mixed with slate. It sells readily, however,
upon the Creek, at a dollar a bushel, for use in the steam-engines.

The sight-seers having satisfied their curiosity with regard to the
mine, and having paid a short visit to the donkeys, were quietly
resuming their walk, when out from the abode of the mine