and getting it ready for sowing in the spring; and it will be a great
deal better for me to live here, in order to save my traveling back
and forth, so far, every night and morning. Then this winter I shall
have my tools to make,--and to finish the inside of the house, and
make the furniture; and if you have any leisure time you can spin.
But after all it will not be very comfortable for you, and perhaps you
would rather wait until spring."

"No," said Mary Erskine. "I would rather come this fall."

"Well," rejoined Albert, speaking in a tone of great satisfaction.
"Then I will get the house up next week, and we will be married very
soon after."

There were very few young men whose prospects in commencing life were
so fair and favorable as those of Albert. In the first place, he was
not obliged to incur any debt on account of his land, as most young
farmers necessarily do. His land was one dollar an acre. He had one
hundred dollars of his own, and enough besides to buy a winter stock
of provisions for his house. He had expected to have gone in debt for
the sixty dollars, the whole price of the land being one hundred and
sixty; but to his great surprise and pleasure Mary Erskine told him,
as they were coming home from seeing the land after the burn, that she
had seventy-five dollars of her own, besides interest; and that she
should like to have sixty dollars of that sum go toward paying for
the land. The fifteen dollars that would be left, she said, would be
enough to buy the furniture.

"I don't think that will be quite enough," said Albert.