"There, Miss Wayne!" suddenly said a voice at the door.

Hope and Gabriel turned at the same moment, and beheld Abel Newt entering
the room gayly, with a sketch in his hand. He nodded to Gabriel without
speaking, but went directly to Hope and showed her the drawing.

"There, that will do for a beginning, will it not?"

It was a bold, dashing sketch. The pine-trees, the windows, the
piazzas--yes, she saw them all. They had a new charm in her eyes.

"That tree comes a little nearer that window," said she.

"How do you know it does?" he replied. "You, who only draw from books?"

"I think I ought to know the tree that I see every day at my own window!"

"Oh! that is your window!"

Gabriel was confounded at this sudden incursion and apparent resumption
of a previous conversation. As he ran up the avenue he had not remarked
Abel sketching on the lawn. But Abel, sketching on the lawn, had observed
Gabriel running up the avenue, and therefore happened in to ask Miss
Wayne's opinion of his drawing. He chatted merrily on:

"Why, there's your grandpapa when he was a little grand-baby and had an
old grandpapa in his turn," said he, pointing at the portrait he had
remarked upon his previous visit in that parlor. "What a funny little old
fellow! Let me see. Gracious! 'twas before the Revolution. Ah! now, if he