chimney and making a luminous mist of the emerging smoke. The
interior, as seen through the window, caused him to draw up with a
terminative air and watch. The house was rather large for a
cottage, and the door, which opened immediately into the living-
room, stood ajar, so that a ribbon of light fell through the
opening into the dark atmosphere without. Every now and then a
moth, decrepit from the late season, would flit for a moment
across the out-coming rays and disappear again into the night.



CHAPTER II.


In the room from which this cheerful blaze proceeded, he beheld a
girl seated on a willow chair, and busily occupied by the light of
the fire, which was ample and of wood. With a bill-hook in one
hand and a leather glove, much too large for her, on the other,
she was making spars, such as are used by thatchers, with great
rapidity. She wore a leather apron for this purpose, which was
also much too large for her figure. On her left hand lay a bundle
of the straight, smooth sticks called spar-gads--the raw material
of her manufacture; on her right, a heap of chips and ends--the
refuse--with which the fire was maintained; in front, a pile of
the finished articles. To produce them she took up each gad,
looked critically at it from end to end, cut it to length, split
it into four, and sharpened each of the quarters with dexterous
blows, which brought it to a triangular point precisely resembling
that of a bayonet.