these wonderful golden visions. Plenty of money, stood for plenty of time to do just as she pleased. Her mother could not be always telling her, "you must learn to be industrious, for you are a poor man's child, and have got to make your own way in the world."

"I hope father will go to California," was the first symptom of consciousness she showed, while Abby splashed away in the water, regardless of scalded hands and mottled elbows.

"My goodness, Hannah! do see what you are about-letting the end of the towel go right into the dishwater. I'm sure I don't want my father to go clear off there and die, if you do."

"People don't always die-there's Robinson Crusoe, taken home after all he went through, and I'm sure the Swiss Family will. I don't like to look at the last chapter ever, but of course they will be. I heard father tell mother, when I was folding up the table-cloth, that he wouldn't be gone over a year and a half, and was sure to make ten or twenty thousand dollars."

"Twenty-thousand-dollars!

Why, Han

nah, that's more than Squire Merrill's worth

Why, how rich we'd be! perhaps we'd have a new house."

"And a big book-case in the parlor, full of -every thing!" added Hannah, intent only on her personal accommodation.

"And handsome carpets all over it, and a mahogany sofa, and a big looking-glass. Just 'spose it once."

"I hope we'll have a garden, with an elegant arbor, as shady as can be."

"With grapes, and lots of fruit-trees, and plenty of dahlias! Well, it would be nice," and Abby suffered the knife handles to slip into the hot water, a piece of carelessness expressly forbidden by the careful Mrs. Gilman, while she rested her chubby hands thoughtfully on the rim of the milk pan.

"But come, the water's all getting cold, and there's Sam round by the barn whistling. There's the knives."

"It's always cold here," shivered Hannah, fretfully; "I should think mother might let us wash dishes on the table in the kitchen. I'm most frozen here every night. It takes twice as long-"

"There's Sam slamming the door as usual," interrupted Abby, “tracking up the whole floor, of course."

And there stood Sam, as she looked over her shoulder into the centre room, his face glowing with the quick walk, a woollen comforter knotted about his throat, and the torn vizor of a sealskin cap hanging over his eyes. His old roundabout, buttoned up close to the chin, was powdered with feathery flakes of snow, and his gray satinet pantaloons, with "eyes," as he called the patches on the knees, scarcely reached to his boots. But for all this, he was a fine, hardy-looking boy, full of life, and health, and spirits, and would have demonstrated the latter by an impromptu war dance, on the kitchen floor, if he had not caught his mother's look of warning.

"Been to supper at the deacon's-give us the milk pail, Chunk," he called out very unceremoniously in answer to Abby's threatened lecture. "I know you like to strain the milk after dark, so you can have me to hold the light for you. Don't she, Nan?-hurry up there," and snatching the pail, he was gone again in a moment, out into the darkness and increasing storm,

caring neither for the loneliness nor the expo

sure.

Mrs. Gilman's face lighted as she looked after him. She had been listening to her husband's plans, clearer, and more capable of being carried out, than most of them, showing that some one else had been assisting to make them. Mr. Gilman had persuaded himself, with this adviser's assistance, that he would be perfectly right in selling the remnant of the farm, with the house, to pay for his passage and outfit to California. "As he only went to make money for his wife and children, they ought not to complain," he reasoned, “and he would return so soon, to give them all that heart could wish. Meantime," he said he would leave them something, and by time winter came he would send money from California. Mrs. Gilman well knew that she must be the entire dependence of her family, however fair all might seem in prospect.

CHAPTER III.

THE MOTHER AND SON.

BUT this was not the thought that weighed heaviest, when all but Mrs. Gilman had forgotten their plans and their pleasures in sleep.

As she sat alone by the broad flagging of the hearth, she could hear the heavy breathing of her husband in the next room, the ceaseless tick-. ing of the clock, the purr of the cat, in its warm corner by the ashes. Overhead were her sleeping children, she alone, watchful and anxious. Slowly the old clock marked the passing hour, the brands mouldered with a dim redness, then broke, and fell with a shower of sparks upon the hearth. The rising wind rattled the loose window frames, the cold snow drifted upon the sill, white and chilling. She had kept many a midnight watch since she had been a wife, but this was the dreariest of all. She did not bury her