nson, don't abuse yourself in this manner--I cannot speak all my
thankfulness--I can never do enough for you. Sometimes, Ben, sometimes,
I think you are the best, almost the only true friend that I have on
earth--that is among the old friends, Ben."

Her eyes were full of tears. She pressed Ben's hard hand with her white
fingers.

"He'd die for you--that ere old weather-beaten chap--he'd die for you
any minute, and never ask the reason; but don't talk to him in that ere
way--it'll break his heart if you do. His eyes have sprung aleak
already, and no pump rigged, nothing to help hisself with, but the cuff
of his coat!"

"Well, well, I will not vex you with my thanks; but remember, good
friend, I must always feel them. Now tell me what you have got in the
basket. Something nice or beautiful, I daresay, for you bring the breath
of the hills in your very clothes."

Ben sat down his basket, with a glow of satisfaction, and proceeded to
display its contents: first, he removed a layer of crimson maple leaves,
presenting a surface of bright golden tints underneath, which were
daintily lifted from a bed of the softest and greenest moss in which a
pair of superb speckled trout lay softly embedded. Ben looked up with a
broad smile, as Mabel touched their spotted sides, gleaming up through
the delicate green, as if the gorgeous coloring of the leaves which lay
heaped upon the marble console had struck through, leaving prismatic
stains behind.

"I thought," said Ben, peering affectionately down into the basket,
"that a pair of these ere beauties might tempt you into eating
something. I've been a watching 'em a good while in the holler of the
rocks, just above where Miss Barker's mammy lives. The brook that comes
down by the side of her house is as pure as ice, and almost as cold, and
that's the kind of water for fellers like this. Ain't they smashers,
now? More'n a foot long, both on 'em, and sparkling like a lady's
bracelet."

"Thank you, thank you. They will be delicious. I have tasted no
breakfast yet. Tell the cook to prepare one for me."

"Will you have the goodness to trust that ere to Ben Benson, marm, and
he'll see that there's no mistake this time. That same awkward chap
brought a pair of shiners just like these, from the brook last night,
and instid of gitting in here, as he expected they would, what does he
see but that ar' gov'rness a-carrying them up in a silver platter to
General Harrington's room, as if he'd