,
whom he had thought endowed with no fancies at all, save perhaps that of
being thoroughly warmed after his arctic freezing. Old Mark fond of
Leeza--in love with Leeza!

Leeza wasn't much. Carl did not even think his cousin pretty; his fancy
was for something large and Oriental. But, pretty or not, she had
evidently fascinated Mark Deal, coming, a poor little orphan maid, with
her aunt, Carl's mother, to brighten old Abner Deal's farm-house, one
mile from the windy Exton pier. Carl's mother could not hope to keep her
German son in this new home; but she kept little Leeza, or Eliza, as the
neighbors called her. And Mark, a shy, awkward boy, had learned to love
the child, who had sweet blue eyes, and thick braids of flaxen hair
fastened across the back of her head.

"To care all that for Leeza!" thought Carl, laughing silently in his
hammock. "And then to fancy that she liked that Graves! And then to
leave her, and come away off down here, just on the suspicion!"

But Carl was mistaken. A man, be he never so awkward and silent, will
generally make at least one effort to get the woman he loves. Mark had
made two, and failed. After his first, he had gone North; after his
second, he had come South, bringing Leeza's cousin with him.

In the morning a new life began on the old plantation. First, Scipio was
dismissed; then the hunter who had kept the open-air larder supplied
with game, an old man of unknown, or rather mixed descent, having
probably Spanish, African, and Seminole blood in his veins, was told
that his services were required no more.

"But are you going to starve us, then?" asked Carl, with a comical
grimace.

"I am a good shot, myself," replied Deal; "and a fair cook, too."

"But _why_ do you do it?" pursued the other. He had forgotten all about
the money.

The elder man looked at his brother. Could it be possible that he had
forgotten? And, if he had, was it not necessary, in their altered
circumstances, that the truth should be brought plainly before his
careless eyes?

"I am obliged to do it," he answered, gravely. "We must be very saving,
Carl. Things will be easier, I hope, when the fields begin to yield."

"Good heavens, you don't mean to say I took all you had!" said Carl,
with an intonation showing that the fact that the abstracted sum was
"all" was impressing him more than any agency of his own in the matter.

"I told you I did not mind it," answered Mark, going off with his gun
and game-b