of water and the clear soft green of leaves. We had fruit trees of almost every kind, from the peach to the amber cherry, and countless oaks by the side of the rive

more desolate and destitute, but was there any

, as happens with unlucky children huddled together in large cities. My father had never allowed me much acquaintance with other children; for six years he had left me with a community of lay sisters, in a little town of Languedoc, where I

d with me any more than he played with any thing; but I was the last of his seven children, and he liked to watch me grow. I never knew it, I never guessed it, until he gave his life for mine; but, poor little common thing as I was, I became his only tie to earth. Even to me he was

most easily in French. But my longing had always been for England, and for the sound of English voices and the quietude of English ways. In the chatter and heat and drought of South France some faint remembrance of a greener, cooler, and more silent co

not a clever child; for the next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any thing about me. Like all other girls-and perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys-I had strong

the mill yard. He was anxious to watch, without loss of time, the settlement of some heavy timbers newly sunk in the river's bed, to defend the outworks of the mill. Having his good leave to bring him his pipe, I found him sitting upon a bench with a level fixed before him,

m now quite long enough to be sure he was good and kind. And I knew that the world around these parts was divided into two

that point. "Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years agone, that your fathe

f pleasure, and wisps of blue smoke flitted through his white eyebrows and among the snowy curls of hair

m. Not knowing how to assert myself and declare that I had spoken my honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the bench and waited for him to spea

watching the water so long that I sighed to know where it was going to. "Wh

eful," I said; "for at any ra

now of any one b

Firm-those are all I

t let too many be friends with me. Rest you quite satisfied with three, Miss Rema. I have

le quite nearly related to us: it is imp

f them. My own brother took a twist against me because I tried to save him from ruin; and if any man ever wished me

d enough now, and I am certain my dear father would have wished me to know every thing. Whatever it was,

big brown arm. "Lord bless me!" he said, "what a young gal you are! Or, at least, what a young Miss Rema. What good can you do, miss, by making of a rout? Here you be in as quiet a place as you could find, and all of us likes and pities you. Your father was a wise

perhaps my father thought so, and brought me here for that reason. And I may be glad to come back to you again when I have

you see yonner?" The Sawyer was getting a lit

saws, and tools I don't even know the na

them two oaks. What do you pl

, of course, is a

re unekaled sample of water-power and human ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months of a stretch, except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night aft

hought that women can not reason! However, I did not say another word just then, but gave way to him, as behooved a child. And not only that, but I always found him too good to be argued with-too kind, I mean, and large of heart, and wedded to his own peculiar turns. There was nothing about him that one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be cap