e me the
affectionate cognomen by which I was always addressed at Donaldson
Manor, "Aunt Nancy has stories without number, written and ready for
demand, but my portfolio furnishes only rude pencilings, or at best a
crayon sketch."

"Will you show them to us, Mr. Arlington?" asked the persevering Robert,
who stood beside him, portfolio in hand. "May I draw one out, as Aunt
Annie did the other evening; and will you tell us about it?"

Mr. Arlington, with good-humored playfulness, consented, and Robert drew
from the portfolio one of his drawings, representing a fisherman's
family.

"That man," said I, as I looked at the honest face of the rude,
weather-beaten fisherman, "looks as though he had passed through
adventurous scenes, and might have many a history to tell."

"He did not tell his histories to me," said Mr. Arlington. "I know
nothing more of them than that paper reveals. It seemed to me that the
woman and child were visiting, for the first time, the ocean, whose
booming sound was to the fisherman as the voice of home. He was probably
introducing them to its wonders--revealing to them the mysteries which
awaken the superstition of the vulgar and the poetry of the cultivated
imagination. He has given her, you may observe, a sea-shell, and she is
listening for the first time to its low, strange music."

"And is that all?" asked Robert, when Mr. Arlington ceased speaking.

"All I know, Robert," he answered, with a smile at the boy's
earnestness.

"But did you never go fishing yourself, Mr. Arlington?"

"Not often, Robert; I like more active sports better--hunting--"

"Ah! do tell us about your hunting, Mr. Arlington; you must have had
some adventures in hunting in those great Western forests I have heard
you speak of."

"The greatest adventure I ever had, Robert," said Mr. Arlington, "was in
an _Eastern_ forest, and when I was the _hunted_, not the _hunter_."

"Indians, Mr. Arlington--were they Indians that hunted you?"

"No, Robert; my hunters were wolves."

"Oh! pray tell us about it, Mr. Arlington, will you not?"

"Certainly, with the ladies' permission."

The ladies' permission was soon obtained, and our little party listened
with the deepest interest to the thrilling recital which I have called

THE WOLF CHASE.[2]

During the winter of 1844, being engaged in the northern part of Maine,
I had much leisure to devote to the wild sports of a new country. To
none of these was I more passionately