KATE KIRBY.


The little brooklet, which danced so merrily by the homestead
burial-place, and then flowed on in many graceful turns and
evolutions, finally lost itself in a glossy mill-pond, whose waters,
when the forest trees were stripped of their foliage, gleamed and
twinkled in the smoky autumn light, or lay cold and still beneath the
breath of winter. During this season of the year, from the upper
windows of the homestead the mill-pond was discernible, together with
a small red building which stood upon its banks.

For many years this house had been occupied by Mr. Kirby, who had been
a schoolboy with Ernest Hamilton, and who, though naturally
intelligent, had never aspired to any higher employment than that of
being miller on the farm of his old friend. Three years before our
story opens Mr. Kirby had died, and a stranger had been employed to
take his place. Mrs. Kirby, however, was so much attached to her
woodland home and its forest scenery that she still continued to
occupy the low red house together with her daughter Kate, who sighed
for no better or more elegant home, although rumor whispered that
there was in store for her a far more costly dwelling, than the
"Homestead on the Hillside."

Currently was it reported that during Walter Hamilton's vacations the
winding footpath, which followed the course of the streamlet down to
the mill-pond, was trodden more frequently than usual. The
postmaster's wife, too, had hinted strongly of certain ominous letters
from New Haven, which regularly came, directed to Kate, when Walter