mouthful of something they can eat, while Lollypop is a getting ready to see them home."

Poor Miss Flora immediately disappeared into the kitchen, to order a bit of superior cheese and to have some slices of ham put on the gridiron, and then coming back to the common room went rummaging about from cupboard to cupboard, in search of cake and sweetmeats. Fleda protested and begged in vain.

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She was so sorry she hadn't knowed," Miss Flora said, -"she'd ha' had some cakes made that maybe they could have eaten, but the bread was dry; and the cheese wa'n't as good somehow as the last one they cut; maybe Miss Ringgan would prefer a piece of newer-made, if she liked it; and she hadn't had good luck with her preserves last summer-the most of 'em had fomented-she thought it was the damp weather; but there was some stewed pears that maybe she would be so good as to approve-and there was some ham! whatever else it was it was hot!-"

It was impossible, it was impossible, to do dishonour to all this hospitality and kindness and pride that was brought out for them. Early or late, they must eat, in mere gratitude. The difficulty was to avoid eating everything. Hugh and Fleda managed to compound the matter with each other, one taking the cake and pears, and the other the ham and cheese. In the midst of all this overflow of good-will Fleda bethought her to ask if Miss Flora knew of any girl or woman that would go out to service. Miss Flora took the matter into grave consideration as soon as her anxiety on the subject of their cups of tea had subsided. She did not commit herself, but thought it possible that one of the Finns might be willing to go out.

"Where do they live?"

"It's-a-not far from Queechy Run," said the doctor, whose now and then hesitation in the midst of his speech was never for want of a thought but simply and merely for the best words to clothe it in.

"Is it in our way to-night ?"

He could make it so, the doctor said, with pleasure, for it would give him permission to gallant them a little further.

They had several miles yet to go, and the sun went down

as they were passing through Queechy Run. Under that still cool clear autumn sky Fleda would have enjoyed the ride very much, but that her unfulfilled errand was weighing upon her, and she feared her aunt and uncle might want her services before she could be at home. Still, late as it was, she determined to stop for a minute at Mrs. Finn's and go home with a clear conscience. At her door, and not till there, the doctor was prevailed upon to part company, the rest of the way being perfectly plain.

Mrs. Finn's house was a great unprepossessing building, washed and dried by the rain and sun into a dark dingy colour, the only one that had ever supplanted the original hue of the fresh-sawn boards. This indeed was not an uncommon thing in the country; near all the houses of the Deepwater settlement were in the same case. Fleda went up a flight of steps to what seemed the front door, but the girl that answered her knock led her down them again and round to a lower entrance on the other side. This introduced Fleda to a large ground-floor apartment, probably the common room of the family, with the large kitchen fireplace and flagged hearth and wall cupboards, and the only furniture the usual red-backed splinter chairs and wooden table. A woman standing before the fire with a broom in her hand answered Fleda's inclination with a saturnine nod of the head, and fetching one of the redbacks from the wall bade her "sit down."

Poor Fleda's nerves bade her " go away." The people looked like their house. The principal woman, who remained standing broom in hand to hear Fleda's business, was in good truth a dark personage; her head covered with black hair, her person with a dingy black calico, and a sullen cloud lowering over her eye. At the corner of the fireplace was an old woman, laid by in an easy chair; disabled, it was plain, not from mental but bodily infirmity; for her face had a cast of mischief which could not stand with the innocence of second childhood. At the other corner sat an elderly woman sewing, with tokens of her trade for yards on the floor around her. Back at the far side of the room a young man was eating his supper at the table alone; and under the table, on the floor, the enor mous family bread trough was unwontedly filled with the

sewing woman's child, which had with superhuman efforts crawled into it and lay kicking and crowing in delight at its new cradle. Fleda did not know how to enter upon her business.

"I have been looking," she began, " for a person who is willing to go out to work-Miss Flora Quackenboss told me perhaps I might find somebody here."

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Somebody to help ?" said the woman beginning to use her broom upon the hearth.--"Who wants 'em ?"

"Mrs. Rossitur-my aunt."

"Mrs. Rossitur?-what, down to old Squire Ringgan's place?"

"Yes.

much."

We are left alone and want somebody very

"Do you want her only a few days, or do you calculate to have her stop longer? because you know it wouldn't be worth the while to put oneself out for a week."

"O we want her to stay,-if we suit each other."

"Well I don't know," said the woman going on with her sweeping, "I could let you have Hannah, but I 'spect I'll want her to hum-What does Mis' Rossitur calculate to give?"

"I don't know-anything that's reasonable."

"Hannah kin go-just as good as not," said the old woman in the corner rubbing her hands up and down her lap;-" Hannah kin go, just as good as not!"

"Hannah ain't a going," said the first speaker, answering without looking at her. "Hannah 'll be wanted to hum; and she ain't a well girl neither; she's kind o' weak in her muscles; and I calculate you want somebody that can take hold lively. There's Lucy-if she took a notion she could go-but she'd please herself about it. She won't do nothing without she has a notion."

This was inconclusive, and desiring to bring matters to a point Fleda after a pause asked if this lady thought Lucy would have a notion to go.

"Well I can't say--she ain't to hum or you could ask her. She's down to Mis' Douglass's, working for her today. Do you know Mis' Douglass?-Earl Douglass's wife?"

"O yes, I knew her long ago," said Fleda, thinking it

might be as well to throw in a spice of ingratiation ;-"I am Fleda Ringgan. I used to live here with my grandfather."

"Don't say! Well I thought you had a kind o' look— the old Squire's granddarter, ain't you?"

"She looks like her father," said the sewing-woman laying down her needle, which indeed had been little hindrance to her admiration since Fleda came in.

"She's a real pretty gal," said the old woman in the

corner.

"He was as smart a lookin' man as there was in Queechy township, or Montepoole either," the sewingwoman went on, "Do you mind him, Flidda?"

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go!"

Anastasy," said the old woman aside, "let Hannah

"Hannah's a going to keep to hum!--Well about Lucy," she said, as Fleda rose to go." I can't just say-suppos❜n you come here to-morrow afternoon-there's a few coming to quilt, and Lucy 'll be to hum then. I should admire to have you, and then you and Lucy can agree what you'll fix upon. You can get somebody to bring you, can't you?" Fleda inwardly shrank, but managed to get off with thanks and without making a positive promise, which Miss Anastasia would fain have had. She was glad to be out of the house and driving off with Hugh.

"How delicious the open air feels!"

"What has this visit produced?" said Hugh.

"An invitation to a party, and a slight possibility that at the party I may find what I want."

"A party !" said Hugh. Fleda laughed and explained. "And do you intend to go

?"

"Not I at least I think not. But Hugh, don't say anything about all this to aunt Lucy. She would be troubled."

Fleda had certainly when she came away no notion of improving her acquaintance with Miss Anastasia; but the supper, and the breakfast and the dinner of the next day, with all the nameless and almost numberless duties of housework that filled up the time between, wrought her to a very strong sense of the necessity of having some kind of "help" soon. Mrs. Rossitur wearied her

'self excessively with doing very little, and then looked so sad to see Fleda working on, that it was more disheartening and harder to bear than the fatigue. Hugh was a most faithful and invaluable coadjutor, and his lack of strength was like her own made up by energy vof -will; but neither of them could bear the strain long; and when the final clearing away of the dinner-dishes gave her a breathing-time she resolved to dress herself and put her thimble in her pocket and go over to Miss Finn's quilting. Miss Lucy might not be like Miss Anastasia; and if she were, anything that had hands and feet to move instead of her own would be welcome:

Hugh went with her to the door and was to come for her at sunset.

H