and, while, on the other arm, she supports an infant not _more_ than
six months old. It was for the advent of this little stranger, that they
delayed their emigration: and they set out while it was very young, for
fear of the approach of its successor. If they waited for their youngest
child to attain a year of age, they would never "move," until they would
be too old to make another "clearing."

You pass on--perhaps ejaculating thanks that your lot has been
differently cast, and thinking you have seen the last of them. But a few
hundred yards further, and you hear the tinkling of a bell; two or three
lean cows--with calves about the age of the baby--come straggling by.
You look for the driver, and see a tall girl with a very young face--the
eldest of the family, though not exceeding twelve or thirteen years in
age. You feel quite sure, that, besides her sun-bonnet and well-worn
shoes, she wears but one article of apparel--and that a loose dress of
linsey, rather narrow in the skirt, of a dirty brown color, with a tinge
of red. It hangs straight down about her limbs, as if it were wet, and
with every step--for she walks stoutly--it flaps and flies about her
ankles, as if shotted in the lower hem. She presents, altogether, rather
a slatternly figure, and her face is freckled and sunburnt.

But you must not judge her too rashly; for her eye is keen and
expressive, and her mouth is quite pretty--especially when she smiles. A
few years hence--if you have the _entree_--you may meet her in the best
and highest circles of the country. Perhaps, while you are dancing
attendance upon some new administration, asking for a "place," and
asking, probably, in vain, she may come to Washington, a beautiful and
accomplished woman--the wife of some member of Congress, whose
constituency is numbered by the hundred thousand!

You may pass on, now, and forget her; but, if you stop to talk five
minutes, she will not forget _you_--at least, if you say anything
striking or sensible. And when you meet her again, perhaps in a gilded
saloon, among the brightest and highest in the land--if you seek an
introduction, as you probably will--she will remind you of the meeting,
and to your astonishment, will laughingly describe the scene, to some of
her obsequious friends who stand around. And then she will perhaps
introduce you, as an old friend, to one of those flax-haired boys, who
peeped out of the wagon over his mother's shoulder, as you passed the