those years, and now he was come home to marry her. They would be married at once. That, at least, was certain in an uncertain world-fixed and certain as that he would finish Miss Tyrrell's. picture and forward it, as per contract, within a week.

I dare say it incommoded Ruth to sacrifice her capacious store - room, which, happening to open from Bob's bed-chamber and to possess a sky-light, was at once promoted to the function of atelier; but she proceeded cheerfully to transfer her household stuff, stowing it away in nooks and pigeon-holes, merely craving permission to leave some strings of dried-apples which depended from the rafters. She could not find it in her heart, however, to rebuke the kitchenmaid, who bewailed lustily the confiscation of her clothes-horse (so she termed a drying-frame), and probably Ruth condemned in secret the perversion of that machine to art purposes. But she esteemed it her plain duty to further Bob's wishes, and forestall them if she could, so when he had rigged a tolerable easel and got fairly to work, Ruth enjoined the utmost quiet on her subjects, and strove to compass the death-like silence which she presumed congenial to æsthetic toil.

It was a shock, therefore, to the wellmeaning girl, when she stole in on tiptoe to announce the midday meal, to find Nellie at Bob's elbow, giggling and prattling right noisily, and daubing a strip of canvas with enthusiasm. Ruth disliked to scold, but some reprimand seemed necessary.

"Why will you be so thoughtless, Nell?" she said. "Look at all that fine paint wasted! How can Bob keep his wits with such a din!"

"O, let her stay," said the artist. "Talking don't tease me; rather helps this sort of work."

"Does it?" said Ruth, astounded, and beginning to find small difference be

tween such work and play. "Why, Mr. Greathead, the Baptist minister, locks himself up for days when he writes sermons."

"That's what makes them so musty," said profane Bob. "But come here, Ruth; what do you think of this?". and he pointed to Miss Tyrrell's portrait.

"I think she's lovely," protested Nellie, who had bestowed close attention on the young lady's toilet. "See how she does up her hair; and the ruff round her neck—I wish I had one!"

"A comely face, but dreamy-looking," said wide-awake Ruth, and picks up a landscape with more interest.

"That's a view in the Morena," explains Robin, "the region you're always hearing of in Don Quixote.”

"I don't remember," said his betrothed dubiously. "It seems a hilly country. What breed of sheep is that?— such curly wool and twisted horns. Mine are common stock, but I clipped two hundred pounds last shearing."

"We'll go and inspect them, dear, after tea," said Bob, who was looking forward eagerly to the evening walk.

"O, come here!" shouted Nell, and made her sister look at some junketings in the Tyrol-a pretty scene enoughwhere the bright costumes of the women had caught the damsel's eye. "It's too sweet," she murmured tenderly; "how I should love to go there!"

But Ruth opined they were barbarous creatures, of thriftless habits, and probably Roman Catholics. "I guess there's more dancing than plowing over there," she said, and marshaled Bob and Nell down to dinner.

In the busiest households the evening is a season of leisure and refreshment; but after sundown Squire Allen must needs stroll over from the mill and shake Bob's hand, and take Ruth aside to disclose a notable project for supplying the Notch House with eggs and but

ter. The sagacious housewife discerned much promise in that scheme, forthwith got out pens and paper, and was presently deep in figures, renouncing utterly for that occasion such frivolities as moonlight walks.

"Nellie will go," she said; and accordingly Robin, who would have preferred, perhaps, to drink in solitude the spirit of the hills, was attended by that vivacious young person, and regaled with divers histories of sewing-bees, spellingmatches, maple-scrapes, and sleigh-rides which had signalized the previous win

ter.

Nor am I sure when the times were more auspicious and no graver cares balked the communion of lovers, that Ruth and Robin were often betrayed into the rhapsodies of strong emotion, or developed a very fervent sympathy. You see their attachment was no giddy impulse, or brief heyday of the blood; it had withstood the test of years, and approached (on one side, at least) the calm beatitude of that wedded fondness which invariably (as you know, madam) gains depth and volume from close acquaintance with the dear object. You might have discovered many tokens of that serene affection, if you had followed them in their rambles and marked how inevitably the converse of this pair drifted away from the dream-land of sentiment to the homely topics of domestic life.

"Look, Ruth, what a site for a painter's home!" cried Bob, on one occasion, when they had walked out along the Bartlett road to a point where Mount Washington itself looms grandly against the northern verge, shouldering a way between Mount Franklin and Mount Monroe.

"You can't mean," said practical Ruth, "you would exchange the old farm for such worthless ground? The view is very pretty here, and I know our house lies in a hollow, but the soil is ten

times richer down the valley. Why, the country hereabouts is scarce fit to graze over, and even buckwheat would starve in land like that!" And she pointed to a field where the stones were, no doubt, discouragingly numerous.

"But we don't intend to go on farming," explained Robin plaintively. "I was only thinking of the summer months, and what a paradise we might make of this quiet hill-side, ringed with forest and river and set in the eye of that glorious scene. We need know nothing of its bleak winter, for then we should be in New York. I thought you understood, dear Ruth. Didn't I tell you I had taken a studio in town?"

"New York!" cried Ruth, almost heart-broken by this disclosure. "Give up the farm, take me away from home?" And the poor girl, though unused to the melting mood, gave way to most unreasonable tears.

Here was a plight for a sensitive young artist, who could not seriously think of relinquishing his calling, and yet was loath to see a woman cry-how much more a buxom cousin with a hundred claims to his regard? What arguments and blandishments, what humorings and compromises, were there resorted to I can not tell, but it is certain the betrothed pair did not quarrel. How could they? There exists not a gentler more considerate being than modest Robin, or one less qualified to take the tyrant's vein; while Ruth, with all her sturdy purpose and executive turn, held quaint theories of female obedience and wholesome notions of the rights of man. Yet all the fostering and comforting in the world can not sweeten the cup of exile to the foolish Switzer lass, nor will the model meekness of your Griselda rob bereavement of its sting. I think Bob read this in his companion's patient looks, and, no doubt, he noticed that she seldom thenceforward went singing about the house.

There is no situation more trying to the temper than to find yourself the reluctant exacter of an irksome rueful sacrifice, and no wonder Bob's spirits at this epoch underwent considerable de. pression. I suppose he was conscious of his uncompanionable mood, for he began to roam about the farm alone, and evinced less relish for Miss Nell's light chat during hours of labor. Over Miss Tyrrell's portrait he was most assiduous, but somehow the picture made no progress. Had Bob addressed himself specially to portraiture, he might naturally seek to make the most of a rather fantastic subject, and surprise by one piquant masterpiece the suffrages of the Academy. But I have often heard him disparage that particular province of his art, and am, therefore, at a loss to explain his present feverish and unsatisfied behavior. Two or three weeks slipped away, and still he was dawdling and fiddling with the canvas. Was it poor Ruth's pensive shadow which thwarted and obscured his work, 'or was there something in the face he pored over which drew the cunning from his hand?

Why should Squire Allen, who regarded art much as Bob regarded top-dressing, select this moment to visit the studio and ventilate his unvarnished heterodox opinions? To be sure he was always loitering about the house and consulting with Ruth Lyon, but matters of moment engrossed those discussions, and it was a rather tardy politeness that prompted him to ask what Bob was doing?

marked, in the course of his review, "air good and val'able. They aint no kind o' use to me, but city folks that live cooped up in them brick dwellins, and haint got room to keep a garding, they kin hire a chap to paint off suthin' green and country-like which is hulsome to the mind. Aint that the idee?"

Robin thought perhaps it was. "As for them palaces," pursued the squire, pointing to a street-scene in Ferrara, "and marble meetin'-houses, I set my foot agin 'em as savorin' o' the pomps and superstitions o' the Old World. They air the high places of idolatry, and the sink o' corruption. Let 'em crumble to the airth!"

"Crumble!" said Bob, indignantly. "Can't you see the beauty of them as mere models ?"

"As models, p'raps," allowed the critic, "for a state-house or Boston postoffice they kin be used. But that 'ere thing," he continued, snapping a finger at Miss Tyrrell's picture, "you kin say nuthin' for! There aint no sense in it."

"What do you mean?" cried Robin, reddening.

"Why, they was fust-rate," the squire explained, "in the old times, and wuth money, too. I've got one o' them likenesses to home that cost a sight"—he referred to his sire's presentment, executed by Luke Slingbrush, a local artist of some fame-"but who's goin' to pay nowadays for all them paints and varnishes when you can buy a photograph for a dollar? You air smart, Robert, I kin see that; but you can't beat the sun, nohow!"

mood-a single letter in the alphabet of character? They're well fitted to fools -your photographs! But the pregnant face, the soulful face, demands a painter to probe and ponder it, until he has spelled out its last secret, and printed it there on the canvas for the world to read. Talk of photographs for a face like that!" And the excited artist flung a cloth over the insulted portrait.

I am not going to revile Robin for that ranting intemperate speech, for he was presently heartily ashamed of it. Ruth on her part could not have looked more confounded if one of her sheep had bitten her, and speedily invented an excuse to draw the squire away.

"That's no business for me," the squire observed, when the two had retreated to a less fervid atmosphere. "I guess it pays, though, when you get the knack of it. I'll tell ye," he added, "what Robert ought to do: jest hurry up, paint off a dozen o' them picturs, stock the old farm complete, and settle down."

"I don't know," Ruth said, in her heart much impressed with the idea; "you might talk to him—but I'm afraid he don't like farming."

"You don't mean to say," shouted the disgusted squire, "that he'd go on paintin' arter he'd made his fortin? Darned if he aint takin' right arter his father, and he was crazy as a loon!"

"You mustn't say things against my uncle," said loyal Ruth, and the squire looked contrite, and then she confided to him the projected removal to New York. The grief which shook her friend at this announcement was unquestionably sincere. "O Jericho!" the squire groaned, "that beats the Dutch! Who's goin' to post me about them new-fangled tools, and study the sile and lot out the crops accordin'? There aint nobody reads them papers and gits the meat out of 'em, Ruth, like you. And the winter evenins, Ruth—what'll I do in the winter evenins?"

"You must get married," said Ruth, archly.

"P'raps I will," he returned, gloomily; "I guess I'm young enough." And indeed he was, and some athletes of twenty might envy his stalwart frame and ruddy cheeks. "You wasn't thinkin' yourself," he went on, with a curious hesitation in his tone-"I mean, you wasn't goin' to git married right away, was you? Next month-aint that kind o' sudden? Howsomever, I wish the boy well, and you, too, Ruth-from my heart, I do." And the worthy fellow meant what he said, but for all that he looked dejected.

"It'll be kind o' lively next month in Conway," the squire continued, with a fine assumption of cheerfulness, "what with weddins, camp-meetins, Fourth o' July, and city folks thick as bees! I'll have a houseful myself, I expect. Bill Cutler, up at the Notch House, can't take no more, and wants to send a string of 'em down here. I guess I'll have to accommodate 'em."

"From Boston?" Ruth presumed.

"Wal, no-they aint Boston folks," the squire thought. "Teirell-Tyrrell! Sounds more like a York name." And then he bade Ruth good-morning, and walked homeward.

III.

When they happen to possess a cottage on the cliff, the most inveterate nomads might subdue, I think, their roving propensities, and consent to sojourn-say three months-at Newport. I was surprised, therefore, by a summons to Mr. Tyrrell's bank, and my abrupt nomination to the command of an expeditionary corps. "Clara's not well," I was informed; "finds Newport much too hot. Your aunt proposes the White Mountains, and wants you to take them there."

This intelligence distressed me a good deal; but I own that, coming from the