CHAPTER VIII.

VISITORS AT THE MILL.--A WINDMILLER OF THE THIRD GENERATION.--CURE
FOR WHOOPING-COUGH.--MISS AMABEL ADELINE AMMABY.--DOCTORS DISAGREE.

One of the earliest of Jan's remembrances--of those remembrances, I
mean, which remained with him when childhood was past--was of little
Miss Amabel, from the Grange, being held in the hopper of the
windmill for whooping cough.

Jan was between three and four years old at this time, the idol of
his foster-mother, and a great favorite with his adopted brothers
and sisters. A quaint little fellow he was, with a broad,
intellectual-looking face, serious to old-fashionedness, very fair,
and with eyes "like slans."

He was standing one morning at Mrs. Lake's apron-string, his arms
clasped lovingly, but somewhat too tightly, round the waist of a
sandy kitten, who submitted with wonderful good-humor to the well-
meant strangulation, his black eyes intently fixed upon the
dumplings which his foster-mother was dexterously rolling together,
when a strange footstep was heard shuffling uncertainly about on the
floor of the round-house just outside the dwelling-room door. Mrs.
Lake did not disturb herself. Country folk were constantly coming
with their bags of grist, and both George and the miller were at
hand, for a nice breeze was blowing, and the mill ground merrily.

After a few seconds, however, came a modest knock on the room-door,
and Mrs. Lake, wiping her hands, proceeded to admit the knocker.
She was a smartly dressed woman, who bore such a mass of laces and