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kitchen, which she had cut up the evening before, for a fricassee, and which were thus rendered unfit for roasting. "Why, he's a perfick stranger!" "If there's only time to make a pie of 'em!" were the two thoughts which crossed each other in her-brain.

"Mrs. Babb! there's no mistaking who you are!" exclaimed Woodbury, as he hastened with outstretched hand up the flagged walk.

The old housekeeper gave him her long, bony hand in return, and made an attempt at a courtesy, a thing which she had not done for so long that one of her knee-joints cracked with the effort. "Welcome, Sir!" said she, with becoming gravity. Woodbury thought she did not recognize him.

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Why, don't you remember Max. ?" he asked. "Yes, I recollex you as you was. And now I come to look, your eyes is jist the same. Dear, dear!" and in spite of herself two large tears slowly took their way down her lank cheeks. "If Miss Dennison and Henry could be here!" Then she wiped her eyes with her hand, rather than spoil the corner of her black silk apron. Stiffening her features the next moment, she turned away, exclaiming in a voice unnecessarily sharp: "Arbutus, why don't you put away the horse ?"

The gentlemen entered the house. The hall-door had evidently not been recently used, for the lock grated with a sound of rust. The sitting-room on the left and the library beyond, were full of hazy sunshine and cheerful with the crackling of fires on the open hearth. Dust was nowhere to be seen, but the chairs stood as fixedly in their formal places as if screwed to the floor, and the old books seemed to be glued together in regular piles. None of the slight tokens of habitual occupation caught the eye-no pleasant irregularity of domestic life, a newspaper tossed here, a glove there, a chair placed obliquely to a favorite window, or a work-stand or foot-stool drawn from its place. Mrs. Babb, it is true, with a

desperate attempt at ornament, had gathered the most presentable of the chrysanthemums, with some sprigs of arborvitæ, and stuck them into an old glass flower-jar. Their pungent odor helped to conceal the faint musty smell which still lingered in the unused rooms.

"I think we will sit here, Mrs. Babb," said Woodbury, leading the way into the library. "It was always my favorite room," he added, turning to the lawyer, "and it has the finest view of the lake."

"I'm afeard that's all you'll have," the housekeeper grimly remarked. "Things is terrible upside-down: you come so onexpected. An empty house makes more bother than a full one. But you're here now, an' you'll have to take it sich as it is."

Therewith she retired to the kitchen, where Bute soon joined her.

"Well, Mother Forty," he asked, "how do you like his looks? He's no more changed than I am, only on th' outside. I don't s'pose he knows more than ever about farmin', but he's only got to let me alone and things 'll go right."

"Looks is nothin'," the housekeeper answered. "Handsome is that handsome does, I say. Don't whistle till you're out o' the woods, Bute. Not but what I'd ruther have him here than some o' them people down to Po'keepsy, that never took no notice o' her while she lived."

"There's no mistake, then, about his havin' bought the farm ?"

"I guess not, but I'll soon see."

She presently appeared in the library, with a pitcher of cider and two glasses on a tray, and a plate of her best "jumbles." "There's a few bottles o' Madary in the cellar," she said; "but you know I can't take nothin' without your leave, Mr. Hammond-leastways, onless it's all fixed."

Woodbury, however, quietly answered: "Thank you, we will leave the wine until dinner. You can give us a meal, I presume, Mrs. Babb ?"

""Two'nt be what I'd like. I'd reckoned on a supper las' night, instid of a dinner to-day. Expect it 'll be pretty much pot-luck. However, I'll do what I can."

Mrs. Babb then returned to the kitchen, satisfied, at least, that Mr. Maxwell Woodbury was now really the master of · Lakeside.

CHAPTER III.

AN EVENING OF GOSSIP, IN WHICH WE LEARN SOMETHING ABOUT THE PERSONS ALREADY MENTIONED.

AFTER a long absence in India, Woodbury had come home to find all his former associations broken, even the familiar landmarks of his boyish life destroyed. His only near relative was an older sister, married some years before his departure, and now a stately matron, who was just beginning to enjoy a new importance in society from the beauty of her daughters. There was a small corner in her heart, it is true, for the exiled brother. The floor was swept, there; the room aired, and sufficient fire kept burning on the hearth, to take off the chill: but it was the chamber of an occasional guest rather than of an habitual inmate. She was glad to see him back again, especially as his manners were thoroughly refined and his wealth was supposed to be large (indeed, common report greatly magnified it): she would have lamented his death, and have worn becoming mourning for him-would even have persuaded her husband to assist him, had he returned penniless. In short, Woodbury could not complain of his reception, and the absence of a more intimate relation—of a sweet, sympathetic bond, springing from kinship of heart as well as of blood, was all the more lightly felt because such bond had never previously existed.

In the dreams of home which haunted him in lonely hours, on the banks of the Hoogly or the breezy heights of Darjeeling, Lakeside always first arose, and repeated itself most frequently and distinctly. "Aunt Dennison," as he was accustomed to call her, took the place, in his affectionate memory,

of the lost mother whose features he could trace but dimly, far back in the faint consciousness of childhood. There seemed to be no other spot in the world to which he had a natural right to return. The friends whom he had left, in New York, as a young man of twenty-one, had become restless, impetuous men of business, from whose natures every element of calm had been shaken, while he had slowly and comfortably matured his manhood in the immemorial repose of Asia. The atmosphere of the city at first excited, then wearied him. The wish to visit Lakeside was increasing in his mind, when he was one day startled by seeing the property advertised for sale, and instantly determined to become the purchaser. A correspondence with Mr. Hammond ensued, and, as there was another competitor in the field, Woodbury's anxiety to secure the old place led him to close the negotiations before he had found time to see it again. Now, however, he had made arrangements to spend the greater part of the winter there, as much on account of the certain repose and seclusion which he craved, as from the physical necessity of that tonic which the dry cold of the inland offered to his languid tropical blood.

No disposal had yet been made of the stock and implements belonging to the farm, which had not been included in the purchase of the estate. Woodbury's object in buying the land had no reference to any definite plan of his future life. He had come back from India with a fortune which, though moderate, absolved him from the necessity of labor. He simply wished to have a home of his own-an ark of refuge to which he could at any time return-a sheltered spot where some portion of his life might strike root. His knowledge of farming was next to nothing. Yet the fields could not be allowed to relapse into wilderness, the house must have a housekeeper, and the necessity of continuing the present occupants in their respective functions was too apparent to be discussed. For the present, at least, Mrs. Babb and Arbutus were indispensable adherents of the property.

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