ground was swampy, the pulpy nature of it was
obviated by logs of wood laid across the boggy
part. The deep green forest, tangled into heavy
darkness even thus early in the year, came
within a few yards of the road all the way,
all hough efforts were regularly made by the
inhabitants of the neighbouring settlements to
keep a certain space clear on each side for fear
of the lurking Indians, who might otherwise
come upon them unawares. The cries of strange
birds, the unwonted colour of some of them, all
suggested to the imaginative or unaccustomed
traveller the idea of war-whoops and painted
deadly enemies. But at last they drew near to
Salem, which rivalled Boston in size in those
days, and boasted the name of one or two streets,
although to an English eye they looked rather
more like irregularly built houses, clustered round
the meeting-house, or rather one of the meeting-
houses, for a second was in process of building.
The whole place was surrounded with two circles
of stockades; between the two were the gardens
and grazing ground for those who dreaded their
cattle straying into the woods, and the
consequent danger of reclaiming them.

The lad who drove them flogged his spent
horse into a trot as they went through Salem
to Ralph Hickson's house. It was evening, the
leisure time for the inhabitants, and their
children were at play before the houses. Lois
was struck by the beauty of one wee toddling
child, and turned to look after it; it caught its
little foot in a stump of wood, and fell with a
cry that brought the mother out in affright. As
she ran out, her eye caught Lois's anxious gaze,
although the noise of the heavy wheels drowned
the sound of her words of inquiry as to the
nature of the hurt the child had received. Nor
had Lois time to think long upon the matter, for
the instant after, the horse was pulled up at the
door of a good, square, substantial, wooden
house, plastered over into a creamy white,
perhaps as handsome a house as any in Salem;
and there she was told by the driver that her
uncle, Ralph Hickson, lived. In the flurry of
the moment she did not notice, but Captain
Holdernesse did, that no one came out at the
unwonted sound of wheels, to receive and welcome
her. She was lifted down by the old sailor, and
led into a large room, almost like the hall of
some English manor-house as to size. A tall,
gaunt young man of three or four and twenty
sat on a bench by one of the windows, reading
a great folio by the fading light of day. He did
not rise when they came in, but looked at them
with surprise, no gleam of intelligence coming
into his stern, dark face. There was no woman
in the house-place. Captain Holdernesse paused
a moment, and then said:

"Is this house Ralph Hickson's?"
"It is," said the young man, in a slow, deep
voice. But he added no word further.

"This is his niece, Lois Barclay," said the
captain, taking the girl's arm, and pushing her
forwards, The young man looked at her
steadily and gravely for a minute; then rose
and carefully marking the page in the folio
which hitherto had lain open upon his knee,
said, still in the same heavy, indifferent manner,
' I will call my mother, she will know."

He opened a door which looked into a warm
bright kitchen, ruddy with the light of the fire
over which three women were apparently
engaged in cooking something, while a fourth, an
old Indian woman, of a greenish brown colour,
shrivelled up and bent with apparent age, moved
backwards and forwards, evidently fetching the
others the articles they required.

"Mother," said the young man; and having
arrested her attention, he pointed over his
shoulder to the newly arrived strangers, and
returned to the study of his book, from time to
time, however, furtively examining Lois from
beneath his dark shaggy eyebrows.

A tall, largely made woman, past middle life,
came in from the kitchen, and stood
reconnoitring the strangers.

Captain Holdernesse spoke.

"This is Lois Barclay, Master Ralph Hickson's
niece."

"I know nothing of her," said the mistress
of the house, in a deep voice, almost as masculine
as her son's.

"Master Hickson received his sister's letter,
did he not? I sent it off myself by a lad named
Elias Wellbeloved, who left Boston for this
place yester morning."

' Ralph Hickson has received no such letter.
He lies bedridden in the chamber beyond. Any
letters for him must come through my hands;
wherefore I can affirm with certainty that no such
letter has been delivered here. His sister
Barclay, she that was Henrietta Hickson, and whose
husband took the oaths to Charles Stuart, and
stuck by his living when all godly men left
theirs—- "

Lois, who had thought her heart was dead
and cold a minute before at the ungracious
reception she had met with, felt words come up
into her mouth at the implied insult to her
father, and spoke out, to her own and the
captain's astonishment:

"They might be godly men who left their
churches on that day of which you speak, madam;
but they alone were not the godly men, and no
one has a right to limit true godliness for mere
opinion's sake."

"Well said, lass," spoke out the captain,
looking round upon her with a kind of admiring
wonder, and patting her on the back.

Lois and her aunt gazed into each other's
eyes unflinchingly for a minute or two of
silence; but the girl felt her colour coming and
going while the elder woman's never varied;
and the eyes of the young maiden were filling
fast with tears, while those of Grace Hickson
kept on their stare, dry and unwavering.

"Mother!" said the young man, rising up
with a quicker motion than any one had yet
used in this house, " it is ill speaking of such
matters when my cousin comes first among
us. The Lord may give her grace hereafter, but
he has travelled from Boston city to-day, and she
and this seafaring man must need rest and food."