"Can anything equal the spring-time!" she burst forth at length.

Her uncle looked at her and smiled. "Perhaps not; but it is one thing," said he sighing, "for taste to enjoy and another thing for calculation to improve."

"But one can do both, can't one?" said Fleda brightly. "I don't know," said he sighing again. "Hardly."

Fleda knew he was mistaken and thought the sighs out of place. But they reached her; and she had hardly condemned them before they set her off upon a long train of excuses for him, and she had wrought herself into quite a fit of tenderness by the time they reached her cousin.

They found him on a gentle side-hill, with two other men and teams, both of whom were stepping away in different parts of the field. Mr. Plumfield was just about setting off to work his way to the other side of the lot when they came up with him.

Fleda was not ashamed of her aunt Miriam's son, even before such critical eyes as those of her uncle. Farmer-like as were his dress and air, they shewed him nevertheless a well-built, fine-looking man, with the independent bearing of one who has never recognised any but mental or moral superiority. His face might have been called handsome; there was at least manliness in every line of it; and his excellent dark eye shewed an equal mingling of kindness and acute common sense. Let Mr. Plumfield wear what clothes he would one felt obliged to follow Burns' notable example and pay respect to the man that was in them.

A fine day, sir," he remarked to Mr. Rossitur after they had shaken hands.

“Yes, and I will not interrupt you but a minute. Mr. Plumfield, I am in want of hands,-hands for this very business you are about, ploughing,--and Fleda says you know everybody; so I have come to ask if you can direct me."

"Heads or hands, do you want?" said Seth, clearing his boot-sole from some superfluous soil upon the share of his plough.

"Why both, to tell you the truth. I want hands, and teams, for that matter, for I have only two, and I suppose there is no time to be lost. And I want very much to get a person thoroughly acquainted with the business to go along

with my man. He is an Irishman, and I am afraid not very well accustomed to the ways of doing things here."

"Like enough," said Seth ;--"and the worst of 'em is you can't learn 'em."

"Well!—can you help me?"

"Mr. Douglass!"-said Seth, raising his voice to speak to one of his assistants who was approaching them,—“ Mr. Douglass!--you're holding that "ere plough a little too obleekly for my grounds."

"Very good, Mr. Plumfield!" said the person called upon, with a quick accent that intimated, "If you don't know what is best it is not my affair!"--the voice very peculiar, seeming to come from no lower than the top of his throat, with a guttural roll of the words.

"Is that Earl Douglass?" said Fleda.

"He's

"You remember him?" said her cousin smiling. just where he was, and his wife too.-Well Mr. Rossitur, 'tain't very easy to find what you want just at this season, when most folks have their hands full and help is all taken up. I'll see if I can't come down and give you a lift myself with the ploughing, for a day or two, as I'm pretty beforehand with the spring, but you'll want more than that. I ain't sure--I haven't more hands than I'll want myself, but I think it is possible Squire Springer may spare you one of hisn. He ain't taking in any new land this year, and he's got things pretty snug; I guess he don't care to do any more than common-anyhow you might try. You know where uncle Joshua lives, Fleda? Well Philetus--what now ?"

They had been slowly walking along the fence towards the furthest of Mr. Plumfield's coadjutors, upon whom his eye had been curiously fixed as he was speaking; a young man who was an excellent sample of what is called "the raw material.” He had just come to a sudden stop in the midst of the furrow when his employer called to him; and he answered somewhat lack-a-daisically,

66

Why I've broke this here clevis-I ha'n't touched anything nor nothing, and it broke right in teu !"

"What do you 'spose 'll be done now ?" said Mr. Plumfield gravely going up to examine the fracture.

"Well 'twa'n't none of my doings," said the young man.

"I ha'n't touched anything nor nothing-and the mean thing broke right in teu. "Tain't so handy as the old kind o' plough, by a long jump."

"You go 'long down to the house and ask my mother for a new clevis; and talk about ploughs when you know how to hold 'em," said Mr. Plumfield.

"It don't look so difficult a matter," said Mr. Rossitur,“but I am a novice myself. What is the principal thing to be attended to in ploughing, Mr. Plumfield?”

There was a twinkle in Seth's eye, as he looked down upon a piece of straw he was breaking to bits, which Fleda, who could see, interpreted thoroughly.

"Well," said he, looking up,-" the breadth of the stitches and the width and depth of the furrow must be regulated according to the nature of the soil and the lay of the ground, and what you're ploughing for;-there's stubble ploughing, and breaking up old lays, and ploughing for fallow crops, and ribbing, where the land has been some years in grass, —and so on; and the plough must be geared accordingly, and so as not to take too much land nor go out of the land; and after that the best part of the work is to guide the plough right and run the furrows straight and even.

He spoke with the most impenetrable gravity, while Mr. Rossitur looked blank and puzzled. Fleda could hardly keep her countenance.

"That row of poles," said Mr. Rossitur presently, they to guide you in running the furrow straight?"

are

"Yes sir-they are to mark out the crown of the stitch. I keep 'em right between the horses and plough 'em down one after another. It's a kind of way country folks play at ninepins," said Seth, with a glance half inquisitive, half sly, at his questioner.

Fleda felt a little uneasy

Mr. Rossitur asked no more. again. It was rather a longish walk to uncle Joshua's, and hardly a word spoken on either side.

The old gentleman was "to hum ;" and while Fleda went back into some remote part of the house to see aunt Syra," Mr. Rossitur set forth his errand.

Well,-and so you're looking for help, eh?" said uncle Joshua when he had heard him through.

"Yes sir,-I want help."

"And a team too?"

"So I have said, sir," Mr. Rossitur answered rather shortly. "Can you supply me?"

"Well,--I don't know as I can," said the old man, rubbing his hands slowly over his knees.--"You ha'n't got much done yet, I s'pose ?"

"Nothing. I came the day before yesterday."

"Land's in rather poor condition in some parts, ain't it?" "I really am not able to say, sir,--till I have seen it." "It ought to be," said the old gentleman shaking his head, "the fellow that was there last didn't do right by ithe worked the land too hard, and didn't put on it anywhere near what he had ought to--I guess you'll find it pretty poor in some places. He was trying to get all he could out of it, I s'pose. There's a good deal of fencing to be done too, ain't there?"

"All that there was, sir,-I have done none since I came." "Seth Plumfield got through ploughing yet?"

"We found him at it."

Ay, he's a smart man. What are you going to do, Mr. Rossitur, with that piece of marsh land that lies off to the south-east of the barn, beyond the meadow, between the hills? I had just sich another, and I”

"Before I do anything with the wet land, Mr. so unhappy as to have forgotten your name?"

I am

Springer, sir," said the old gentleman,--" Springer— Joshua Springer. That is my name, sir."

"Mr. Springer, before I do anything with the wet land I should like to have something growing on the dry; and as that is the present matter in hand will you be so good as to let me know whether I can have your assistance." "there

"Well I don't know,—-” said the old gentleman; ain't anybody to send but my boy Lucas, and I don't know whether he would make up his mind to go or not.”

“Well sir !”—said Mr. Rossitur rising,--“in that case I will bid you good morning. I am sorry to have given you the trouble."

"Stop," said the old man,--"stop a bit. Just sit down -I'll go in and see about it."

Mr. Rossitur sat down, and uncle Joshua left him to go into the kitchen and consult his wife, without whose coun

sel, of late years especially, he rarely did anything. They never varied in opinion, but aunt Syra's wits supplied the steel edge to his heavy metal.

"I don't know but Lucas would as leave go as not,” the old gentleman remarked on coming back from this sharpening process," and I can make out to spare him, I guess. You calculate to keep him, I s'pose?"

"Until this press is over; and perhaps longer, if I find he can do what I want."

'You'll find him pretty handy at a' most anything; but I mean, I s'pose he'll get his victuals with you."

"I have made no arrangement of the kind," said Mr. Rossitur controlling with some effort his rebelling muscles. "Donohan is boarded somewhere else, and for the present it will be best for all in my employ to follow the same plan."

"Very good," said uncle Joshua, "it makes no difference,-only of course in that case it is worth more, when a man has to find himself and his team."

"Whatever it is worth I am quite ready to pay, sir."

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Very good! You and Lucas can agree about that. He'll be along in the morning."

So they parted; and Fleda understood the impatient quick step with which her uncle got over the ground.

"Is that man a brother of your grandfather?”

'No sir-Oh no! only his brother-in-law. My grandmother was his sister, but they weren't in the least like each other."

"I should think they could not," said Mr. Rossitur.

"Oh they were not!" Fleda repeated. "I have always heard that."

After paying her respects to aunt Syra in the kitchen she had come back time enough to hear the end of the discourse in the parlour, and had felt its full teaching. Doubts returned, and her spirits were sobered again. Not another word was spoken till they reached home; when Fleda seized upon Hugh and went off to the rock after her forsaken pie.

"Have you succeeded ?" asked Mrs. Rossitur while they

were gone.