s that floored the porch. Old Byars himself, with his
cracked voice and long gray hair, had left his pipe on the mantel-piece
to investigate the disorder without.

"Hy're Rufe!" he swung uneasily posed on his crutch stick in the
doorway, and mechanically shaded his eyes with one hand, as from the
sun, as he gazed dubiously at the young man, "hain't ye in an' about
finished yer visit?--or yer visitation, ez the pa'son calls it. He, he,
he! Wall, Loralindy hev gone up steers ter the roof-room, an it's about
time ter bar up the doors. Waal, joy go with ye, he, he, he! Come off,
Tige, _ye_ Bose, hyar! Cur'ous I can't l'arn them dogs no manners."

A dreary morrow ensued on the splendid night. The world was full of
mists; the clouds were resolved into drizzling rain; every perspective
of expectation was restricted by the limited purlieus of the present.
The treasure-seekers digging here and there throughout the forest in
every nook in low ground, wherever a drift of the snowy blossoms might
glimmer, began to lose hope and faith. Now and again some iconoclastic
soul sought to stigmatize the whole rumor as a fable. More than one
visited the Byars cabin in the desperate hope that some chance word
might fall from the girl, giving a clue to the mystery.

By daylight the dreary little hut had no longer poetic or picturesque
suggestion. Bereft of the sheen and shimmer of the moonlight its aspect
had collapsed like a dream into the dullest realities. The door-yard was
muddy and littered; here the razor-back hogs rooted unrebuked; the rail
fence had fallen on one side, and it would seem that only their
attachment to home prevented them from wandering forth to be lost in the
wilderness; the clap-boards of the shiny roof were oozing and steaming
with dampness, and showed all awry and uneven; the clay and stick
chimney, hopelessly out of plumb, leaned far from the wall.

Within it was not more cheerful; the fire smoked gustily into the dim
little room, illumined only by the flicker of the blaze and the
discouraged daylight from the open door, for the batten shutters of the
unglazed window were closed. The puncheon floor was grimy--the feet that
curiosity had led hither brought much red clay mire upon them. The
poultry, all wet and dispirited, ventured within and stood about the
door, now scuttling in sudden panic and with peevish squawks upon the
unexpected approach of a heavy foot. Loralinda, sitting at her spinning
wheel, was paler