graver, and thoughtfully welcome of him; or she was cold, distant, and
severely forgetful of the past. How would her adopted father and mother
receive him? Would they ever look upon him in the light of a suitor to
the young girl? He had no fear of Peyton,--he understood his own sex,
and, young as he was, knew already how to make himself respected; but
how could he overcome that instinctive aversion which Mrs. Peyton had
so often made him feel he had provoked? Yet in this dreamy hush of earth
and sky, what was not possible? His boyish heart beat high with daring
visions.

He saw Mrs. Peyton in the porch, welcoming him with that maternal smile
which his childish longing had so often craved to share with Susy.
Peyton would be there, too,--Peyton, who had once pushed back his torn
straw hat to look approvingly in his boyish eyes; and Peyton, perhaps,
might be proud of him.

Suddenly he started. A voice in his very ear!

"Bah! A yoke of vulgar cattle grazing on lands that were thine by right
and law. Neither more nor less than that. And I tell thee, Pancho, like
cattle, to be driven off or caught and branded for one's own. Ha! There
are those who could swear to the truth of this on the Creed. Ay! and
bring papers stamped and signed by the governor's rubric to prove it.
And not that I hate them,--bah! what are those heretic swine to me? But
thou dost comprehend me? It galls and pricks me to see them swelling
themselves with stolen husks, and men like thee, Pancho, ousted from
their own land."

Clarence had halted in utter bewilderment. No one was visible before
him, behind him, on either side. The words, in Spanish, came from the