and lots of heelprints in the side of the road, heelprints with
little spike holes in them.

"Oh! The river drivers have come from up country," I thought,
"and they'll be breaking the jam at our falls tomorrow." I looked
everywhere about and not a man did I see, but still I knew I was
not mistaken for the heelprints could not lie. All the way over
and back I thought about it, though unfortunately forgetting the
molasses, and Alice Robinson not being able to come out, I took
playtime to write a story. It is the first grown-up one I ever
did, and is intended to be like Cora the Doctor's Wife, not like
a school composition. It is written for Mr. Adam Ladd, and people
like him who live in Boston, and is the printed kind you get
money for, to pay off a mortgage.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

LANCELOT OR THE PARTED LOVERS

A beautiful village maiden was betrothed to a stallwart river
driver, but they had high and bitter words and parted, he to weep
into the crystal stream as he drove his logs, and she to sigh and
moan as she went about her round of household tasks.

At eventide the maiden was wont to lean over the bridge and her
tears also fell into the foaming stream; so, though the two
unhappy lovers did not know it, the river was their friend, the
only one to whom they told their secrets and wept into.

The months crept on and it was the next July when the maiden was