is; for one always takes rank from one's husband." Faith looked rather downcast at this.
"Yes," said I; "and pearls and calico——"
"Just because you haven't got a pair yourself! There, be still! I don't want any of your instructions in duty!"
"You ought to put up with a word from a friend, Faith," said I. "You always come to me with your grievances. And I'll tell you what I'll do. You used to like these coral branches of mine; and if you'll give those back to Mr. Gabriel, you shall have the coral."

Well, Faith, she hesitated, standing there trying to muster her mind to the needle, and it ended by her taking the coral, though I don't believe she returned the pearls; but we none of us ever saw them afterwards.

We'd been talking in a pretty low tone, because mother was asleep; and just as she'd finished the other ear, and a little drop of blood stood up on it like a live ruby, the door opened and Dan and Mr. Gabriel came in. There never was a prettier picture than Faith at that moment, and so the young stranger thought, for he stared at her, smiling and at ease, just as if she'd been hung in a gallery and he'd bought a ticket. So then he sat down and repeated to Dan and mother what she'd told me, and he promised to send for the papers to prove it all. But he never did send for them,——delaying and delaying, till the summer wore away; and perhaps there were such papers and perhaps there weren't. I've always thought he didn't want his own friends to know where he was. Dan might be a rich man today if he chose to look them up; but he'd scorch at a slow fire before he'd touch a copper of it. Father never believed a word about it when we recited it again to him.

"So Faith's come into her fortune, has she?" said he. "Pretty child! She 'a'n't had so much before sence she fell heir to old Miss Devereux's best chany, her six silver spoons, and her surname."

So the days passed, and the greater part of every one Mr. Gabriel was dabbling in the water somewhere. There wasn't a brook within ten miles that he didn't empty of trout, for Dan knew the woods as well as the shores, and he knew the clear nights when the insects can keep free from the water so that next day the fish rise hungry to the surface; and so sometimes in the brightest of May noons they'd bring home a string of those beauties, speckled with little tongues of flame; and Mr. Gabriel would have them cooked, and make us all taste them,——for we don't care much for that sort, down here on the Flats; we should think we were famished if we had to eat fish.

And then 

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