fresh pine-apple every morning; and whenever her brother Jose came
down from Casa Blanca with the mules and the _pisco_, she sent me a
large melon and some lovely roses."

--"That is the house we lived in at Baltimore. It was painted white,
and there was a paling in front, and a dooryard with grass. We had
some honeysuckles on the porch;--there they are, and there's the
grape-vine. I had a dog-house, too, made to look like a church, and my
father promised to buy me a Newfoundland dog,--one of those great
hairy fellows, with brass collars, you know, that you can ride
on,--when he had sold a great many pictures, and made his fortune. But
we did not make our fortune in Baltimore, and I never got my dog; so
we came here to Tom Tiddler's ground, to pick up gold and silver. When
we are fixed, and get a new tent, my father is going to give me a
little spade and a cradle, to dig gold enough to buy a Newfoundland
dog with, and then I shall borrow a saw and make a dog-house, like the
one I had in Baltimore, out of that green chest. Charley Saunders
lived in that next house in the picture, and he had a martin-box, with
a steeple to it; but his father gave fencing-lessons, and was very
rich."

As the intelligent little fellow ran on with his pretty prattle, I was
diligently pursuing the lady and child of the specimens through the
sketches. On every leaf I encountered them, ever changing, yet always
the same. Here was the child by my side,--unquestionably the same;
though now I looked in vain for the anxious mouth and the foreboding
eyes in his face of careless, hopeful urchinhood. But who was the
other?--his mother, no doubt; and yet no trace of resemblance.

"And tell me, who is this beautiful lady, my lad,--here, and here, and
here, and here again? You see I recognize her always,--so lovely, and
so gentle-looking. Your mother?"

"Oh, no, Sir!" and he laughed,--"my mother is very different from
that. That is nobody,--only a fancy sketch."

"Only a fancy sketch!" So, then, I thought, my pretty entertainer,
confiding and communicative as you are, it is plain there are some
things you do not know, or will not tell.

"She is not any one we ever saw;--she never lived. My father made her
out of his own head, as I make stories sometimes; or he dreamed her,
or saw her in the fire. But he is very fond of her, I suppose, because
he made her himself,--just as I think my own stories prettier than any
true ones; and he's always drawin