had
bought it on credit, for the sake of having a house in the village to
live in. Then she was amazed at the idea of any person continuing to
live in a log house in the woods, when she had a pretty house of
her own in the middle of the village. She could not for some time be
satisfied that Mary Erskine was in earnest in what she said. But when
she found that it was really so, she went away greatly relieved. Mary
Erskine told her that she had postponed giving her final answer about
buying the house, in order first to see Mr. Gordon, to know whether
he had any objection to the change of ownership. She knew, of course,
that Mr. Gordon would have no right to object, but she rightly
supposed that he would be gratified at having her ask him the
question.

Mary Erskine went on after this for two or three years very
prosperously in all her affairs. Thomas continued to live with her,
in her log-house, and to cultivate the land which she had retained. In
the fall and winter, when there was nothing to be done in the fields
or garden, he was accustomed to work in the shop, making improvements
for the house, such as finishing off the stoop into another room, to
be used for a kitchen, making new windows to the house, and a regular
front door, and in preparing fences and gates to be put up around
the house. He made an aqueduct, too, to conduct the water from a new
spring which he discovered at a place higher than the house, and so
brought a constant stream of water into the kitchen which he had
made in the stoop. The stumps, too, in the fields around the house,
gradually decayed, so that Thomas could root them out and smooth over
the ground where they had stood. Mary Erskine's ten acres thus became
very smooth and beautiful. It was divided by fences into very pleasant
fields, with green lanes shaded by trees, leading from one place to
another. The brook flowed through this land along a very beautiful
valley, and there were groves and thickets here and there, both along
the margin of the brook, and in the corners of the fields, which
gave to the grounds a very sheltered, as well as a very picturesque
expression. Mary Erskine also caused trees and shrubbery to be planted
near the house, and trained honey-suckles and wild roses upon a
trellis over the front door. All these improvements were made in a
very plain and simple manner, and at very little expense, and yet
there was so much taste exercised in the arrangement of them all, that