said, affectionately, as he placed her upon her feet on the floor.

Birt was out early with his axe the next day. The air was
delightfully pure after the rain-storm; the sky, gradually becoming
visible, wore the ideal azure; the freshened foliage seemed tinted
anew. And the morning was pierced by the gilded, glittering
javelins of the sunrise, flung from over the misty eastern
mountains. As the day dawned all sylvan fascinations were alert in
the woods. The fragrant winds were garrulous with wild legends of
piney gorges; of tumultuous cascades fringed by thyme and mint and
ferns. Every humble weed lent odorous suggestions. The airy things
all took to wing. And the spider was a-weaving.

Birt had felled a slender young ash, and was cutting it into lengths
for the fireplace, when he noticed a squirrel, sleek woodland dandy,
frisking about a rotten log at some little distance, by the
roadside.

Suddenly the squirrel paused, then nimbly sped away. There was the
sound of approaching hoofs along the road, and presently from around
the curve a woman appeared mounted on a sorrel mare, and with a
long-legged colt ambling in the rear.

It was Mrs. Griggs, setting out on a journey of some ten miles to
visit her married daughter who lived on a neighboring spur. She had
taken an early start to "git rid o' the heat o' the noon," as she
explained to Mrs. Dicey, who had run out to the rail fence when she
reined up beside it. Birt dropped his axe and joined them,
expecting to hear more about Nate's grant and the gold mine. Rufe
and Tennessee added their company without any definite intention.