time. In fact, the Jemmy who fell from his horse
and sprained his ankle the day they came, was Jemmy Gordon, Anne
Sophia's oldest son.

CHAPTER IV.

CALAMITY.

Both Mary Erskine and Anne Sophia went on very pleasantly and
prosperously, each in her own way, for several years. Every spring
Albert cut down more trees, and made new openings and clearings. He
built barns and sheds about his house, and gradually accumulated quite
a stock of animals. With the money that he obtained by selling the
grain and the grass seed which he raised upon his land, he bought oxen
and sheep and cows. These animals fed in his pastures in the summer,
and in the winter he gave them hay from his barn.

Mary Erskine used to take the greatest pleasure in getting up early
in the cold winter mornings, and going out with her husband to see
him feed the animals. She always brought in a large pile of wood every
night, the last thing before going to bed, and laid it upon the hearth
where it would be ready at hand for the morning fire. She also had a
pail of water ready, from the spring, and the tea-kettle by the side
of it, ready to be filled. The potatoes, too, which were to be roasted
for breakfast, were always prepared the night before, and placed in an
earthen pan, before the fire. Mary Erskine, in fact, was always very
earnest to make every possible preparation over night, for the work of
the morning. This arose partly from an instinctive impulse which made
her always wish, as she expressed it, "to do every duty as soon as it
came in sight," and partly from the pleasure which she derived from a
morning visit to the animals in the barn. She knew them all by name.
She imagined that they all knew her, and were glad to see her by
the light of her lantern in the morning. It gave her the utmost
satisfaction to see them rise, one after another, from their straw,
and begin eagerly to eat the hay which Albert pitched down to them
from the scaffold, while she, standing below upon the barn floor, held
the lantern so that he could see. She was always very careful to hold
it so that the cows and the oxen could see too.

One day, when Albert came home from the village, he told Mary Erskine
that he had an offer of a loan of two hundred dollars, from Mr. Keep.
Mr. Keep was an elderly gentleman of the village,--of a mild and
gentle expression of countenance, and white hair. He was a man of
large property, and often had money to lend at interest. He h