al courses of mince-pie well mortared with | dewed and my face red with apoplectic congesapple-juice, gave up the Tadmors in despair tion-still I fought my way manfully from the and went on to North Betterton-none the less cheerfully perhaps because their errand after a great public foe like myself would enable them to join the ride to-morrow, and charge the sleigh-hire to the county. I woke early in the morning, and after breakfast told Bralligan he might return, paying him as liberally as I could, and engaging him to rectify his unfortunate mistake about the team wherever he might meet Peter on the road. As soon as I had seen him off, Uncle George started with me and my portmanteau in his own sleigh for North Betterton. Lucy gave me a welcome to gladden a heart of stone, and showed herself the brave, thorough-bred woman she always has been. She was ready to go to the world's end with me when I called her-if Uncle George and I would only join her in one more attempt to get the cheerful consent of her parents. She had informed them that I was coming to claim her, but they had answered her entreaties to smile on the nuptials neither yea nor nay. Lucy ran and brought them in for our final experiment. If they were afterward my parentsin-law, I must say of them that they were the dryest old nuts to crack I ever came across. We all of us talked a steady stream at them for an hour and a half without getting a particle of satisfaction. The most encouraging thing we could extract from them was that Lucy had been well brought up, and if she threw herself away it must be her own look out. Under these not particularly brilliant nuptial auspices Uncle George beckoned me out of the room. "Look here, boy," said he, sotto voce, in the entry "just you keep out a while, and give the little gal and me a chance to say some of the good things about you behind your back you're too modest to have us say before your face. You know where the spare-room is? Take your portmanteau upstairs and dress yourself in your weddin' best-bein' ready's half the battle. When they see you coming in, all rigged out with every thing but a minister, it may a kinder settle things-it'll a sorter strike 'em that there's no use where a man's so nigh married as that to try and stop his going the rest of the way." I allowed myself to be ruled by Uncle George's counsel found my way to the room where I had been entertained during my last visit, and opening my luggage once more stood alone in the intoxicating presence of my wedding raiment. Not long did I dally with the delight of the eye. The pantaloons seemed a miracle of style; and although the waistband was by no means made for an alderman, by loosing the back strap entirely I contrived to fasten the buttons. Any man of ordinary self-control could have endured the pressure in view of getting married. confidence in myself only began to be shaken when I put the vest on. I held my breath-I drew in my shoulders-my forehead grew be My lowest up to the last two buttons, and then in a state of mind bordering on horror became convinced that I should never get entirely into that vest without the aid of a sausage-machine. In the midst of all this agony and perspiration I heard the front-door bell ring and caught Lucy's exclamation as she opened to the visitor : "Mr. Dagon!" For Supposing that Peter and his whole series of complications had now arrived upon the scene, I gave way for one brief moment to a despair which bid fair to relieve itself by strewing the floor with a miserable wreck of buttons. a moment only! Contracting myself with martyr resolution I seized the coat and struggled into its arm-holes. As an instrument of torture it beat the vest all hollow. How I ever got it on, in one piece, to the present day has never been clear to me. At that period of the world they must have put stronger thread into mankind's back-seams. When the feat was accomplished I stood stuffed and trussed like a black broadcloth turkey. I was not sure that I could even raise my arm sufficiently to take Lucy's hand in the nuptials, and fancied the appearance I would make holding that little, plump, dimpled cushion straight down by my side as if I were going to bowl it at some imaginary frame of ten-pins. In an encounter with enemies I should have been utterly helplesseven Mr. Tadmor might have knocked me down with impunity and bundled me off to a subterranean dungeon before I could have got out of that coat. Giving a hasty look in the glass and hanging around my neck the two watches which had so nearly brought me to a felon's doom, I was about rushing down stairs to confront the hated rival, when my eye caught a piece of paper sewed just inside my lapel. I tore it off, and was about to pitch it into the fire-place, when I discovered that it had writing on it, and was a hitherto overlooked communication from the Tailor of Largest Ideas. Thus it ran: "DEAR SIR,-In accordance with your statement that the quantity of cloth used was no object to you, but only quality and figure, we have followed the extremity of the present fashion and made the suit as close a fit as possible. The material is our best, and we hope the clothes will prove satisfactory. "MUMPKIN AND STUBBS. "P.S.-If the garments are too large for your wishes we will take them in on your return." Throwing this bitter piece of unconscious irony between the andirons I descended the stairs with half the blood in my body condensed in my head, but a step which betrayed no sign of trepidation, and opening the parlor-door discovered not Peter, as I expected, but his father, the elder Dagon. Lucy, with a pale face, compressed lips, and tearful but courageous eyes, sat on the sofa beside Uncle George, getting "a talking to" from the other three. As I entered the elder Dagon fixed on me a look of pious reproach, unsuccessfully modified, as the raiment flashed upon him, into one of disdain- | give 'em that certificate to-morrow, if they ask ful pity. I went up, without noticing him, to for it." the sofa, and, giving my dear girl a kiss, hung round her neck the watch I had brought for her. This was too much for the flesh and blood of the elder Dagon. "Young man!" said he, sternly, "are you a Christian, and do you mean to come and take this innocent young girl out of her loving family, and marry her in spite of all the arguments which has been so kindly used with you ?" "I hope I'm a Christian, and I do so mean," I replied, catching Lucy's tremulous little white hand into my own. "Oh, Lucy, Lucy!" continued Pa Dagon, in a tone intended to barb a final arrow of remorse which must transfix the most obdurate nature-"oh, little Lucy Mead, that has been so well brought up by pious parents-that was in my Bible-class from pantalets, and that I used to give cherries acrost the fence without thinkin' of chargin' a penny a bunch as is customary in such cases-kin you-kin you, I ask, so far forget every thing as to go on and take up with this man for your husband ?" "I certainly can and will marry John Loring," replied Lucy, facing the persecutor steadfastly through her tears. "Then," said Uncle George, standing up, "the laws of the land having been complied with, in virtue of my office as clerk for the county of Franklin, I certify that John Loring and Lucy Mead are man and wife." "They're-Man-and-Wife!" ejaculated Mr. Dagon. "I'm glad to hear you pronounce them sech. That was all we wanted to take off the last doubt as to whether it was legally regular-in every pint. I'm obleeged by my oath of office to give 'em a certificate under hand and seal, whenever they want it-witnesses, William and George Mead, together with the wife of the former-State of Vermont, in the name of God, Amen!" "What do you mean?" exclaimed both of Lucy's parents, for the first time roused from their stony, less Yankee than Dutch, indifferentism. "What's that you're talkin' about, George ?" Mr. Dagon showed at once the homage rendered by stupidity to talent, and by every American citizen to the authority of constituted law. He dropped into his chair with a "That's so!" and heaved only a melancholy sigh when the parents stammered a hint of their being some way out of it. "So they're really married?" said they, turning at last to Uncle George, as the strongest and kindest. "They air," answered he, beginning to put on his comforter and hunt for his mittens. "Don't ye go yet, George," spoke Lucy's father, approaching me with one hand on his brother's arm. "Young man, the Lord's ways is not our ways, and we don't always get first ch'ice. But we ain't a-goin' agin Lucy-not neither ma nor me-we never did go agin her from a baby, and we can't begin. Only, young man"-here Lucy's father stopped for a minute to clear his throat-" only, young man, be good to the little gal!” Hearing this, Uncle George, who had even more than the usual Puritan horror of scenes, pulled his cap over his eyes, blew his nose, and started for the door precipitately. Not so easily was he destined to pass out! On the threshold he found Peter Dagon about to ring the bell. He had left his now restored full team at the gate, and came puffing in with a thousand apologies for his lateness-an unfortunate mistake having detained him at Barker's overnight-to ask if it was still too late to secure Miss Mead's company for to-day's sleigh-ride. "She don't live here no longer," said Uncle George, solemnly. "Wa'al! Ha-ou-ow d'ye mean?" asked Peter, relaxing his lanky lower jaw. "I only mean to say that if you expect to take Lucy out on this sleigh-ride you'll have to find room in your sleigh for Mr. and Mrs. John Loring." Notwithstanding the delicacy with which he broke the fact, Peter apprehended him at once. Uncle George through that whole region was famous for meaning all he said, and Peter would have turned away without further parley than the ejaculation, "Dog on it! just like them gals!" had not another sleigh, with a single horse, fearfully blown, and bringing Pa and Ma Tadmor, just arrived at the gate. They both rushed up the front garden walk before Peter could get out. "Oh, nephew, nephew!" grieved Mrs. Tadmor, sobbing bitterly. "What I mean is this," answered Uncle George; "I mean that Peter Dagon, Senior, Esq., ought to remember that he is a Justice of the Peace in this township, and I the Clerk of the County inclusive thereof, before he begins to ask a couple of young people the questions in such cases as this, by the law made and provided, and stands to hear them say 'Yes,' fair "Oh, you ungrateful scoundrel!" cried Mr. and square, before two witnesses. Because I Tadmor, shaking him violently-ferocious little mean that, in the eye of the law, this little boy man!-like a tabby-cat shaking a rhinoceros. and gal are married—and no use of wriggling-"D'ye know what your precious son's done?" for the Supreme Court could issue agin' ye to- he continued, white with rage, and screaming morrow a nasty thing the lawyers call a ‘Man- | up at his portly brother-in-law, whom the noise dam-us,' to make ye respect the contract. I'm obleeged, as County Clerk, to certify that the law has been complied with; I'm obleeged to had brought to the door. "If ye don't know, then I'll tell ye! I lent him twenty thousand dollars to invest in the Canadian Wool-Pulling Company, with a written agreement that if it | Gabriel Pitcher, yeoman, in 1685, is bounded ever became necessary for him to realize his upon its eastern limit by the waters of Flotsam securities he would send for me and give me a Bay, and closing the book you will thank the chance to buy 'em. He had a fraudulent as- dignified clerk for his courtesy, and go away, not signment of the entire property executed, with- satisfied, but as nearly so as you are ever likely out mentioning me as creditor, to him and three to be, for you will have possessed yourself of all other men here in town as mean as he is. He the information to be gained upon the subject, ransacked the county to get a double sleigh so and will be ready to return to the old farmthat the four could go over together to-morrow house by the sea, and, sitting in its woodbineand transfer the assets; 'n all this without a covered porch, to listen with attentive faith to word to me! But the Lord preserveth the the story of the ancient dame, who fills the righteous; and in the dark-hope he wasn't pauses of her legend with the whirr of such a drunk!-Peter got a stringhalt horse out of spinning-wheel as the wife of the first Gabriel the stable instead of his own. That put a stop Pitcher may have used beneath this very roof; to him! You heven't done it! Peter, ye-ou for as the spinner assures you, with triumphant heven't done it!" appeal to the solid log-built walls and massive masonry of the chimneys, this is the very house built by the first Gabriel upon his newly-acquired property. "So it was Peter Dagon's horse got changed with yours?" asked Uncle George, earnestly. "Yes," I replied. "Then," said Uncle George, "the Lord has been good to more'n one of us. I own half the stock in that Canadian Company myself, and I know my little Lucy wouldn't like to see her uncle a beggar in his old age. Peter, I'm of a mighty good disposition in general, but you'd better go!" Peter thought so too; and when the house doors included only the family Uncle George was mollified into staying to our extempore wedding dinner by Pa and Ma Mead's conceding that, with their present illumination upon the subject of natural depravity, they could not pronounce themselves to have done quite so badly in the way of sons-in-law after all. About half-way between that day and this the master of the Pitcher house and farm was a Gabriel, who, in addition to his hereditary possessions, had acquired property in a wife and an only child, a daughter, upon whom he had bestowed the name of Nazareth, and whom he educated in the fear of God and the love of duty as interpreted by the straight rule of Puritan tradition. It may be that Gabriel enforced this rule a little more strictly than was quite consistent with the comfort of his household, from the fact that he had himself departed from it so far as to marry a Quaker, who, loving and submissive wife though she had proved, quietly re Those two people, singular as its inconsist-tained and exercised the privilege of separate ency may seem with the law of first impressions, afterward became as good friends as I ever had in my life, and, like Uncle George, continued so till the day of their death. Just then the drowsy cry of "Island Pond!" shoveled us all up to shiver in the fiscal outhouse. AS NAZARETH PITCHER. SK whom you please within twenty miles of its waters how, or when, or why Floater's Bay received its name, and you will probably be informed that the how and the when are questions without reply, but that the why is "because of the floaters there." Pursuing the inquiry you will farther learn that, owing to some peculiarity in the trend of the shore and the course of the tides, whatever bread may be cast upon the waters within fifty miles of this point is sure, sooner or later, to make its appearance in Floater's Bay, then to be either thrown as a waif upon its shores, or to wearily wear itself to fragments by ceaselessly beating upon the rocky point that guards its entrance. Holding fast to this clew you will, if you care to pursue the inquiry, be led to search the County Records in the neighboring shire town, and will there find that the tract of land granted to faith stipulated for in her marriage covenant. With equal exactness did she observe the counter stipulation that her children were to be educated in their father's creed, and Nazareth had assuredly been so educated. But besides the Puritan and the Quaker, the girl possessed a third parent called Nature, and upon her bestowed all unconsciously an adoring faith and tenderness quite foreign to the placid love and duty never denied to father or mother. Those whom we love we love to meet without spectators, and Nazareth's reward and indulgence, after the labor of the day, was to wander by herself through the woods and fields, or along the shore, indulging in the dreams and reveries that her father would have called sinful, and her mother idle. The third parent, however, approved and encouraged them; and to her only did Nazareth reveal them, not in words, but in snatches of song, in faint lingering smiles, in long, wistful gazing across the quiet waters, in half- unconscious tears and causeless sighs, in the tender touch of her lips upon some unplucked flower, in the fondling care bestowed upon some wounded bird or stranded fish. "If Nature put not forth her power It was in the dreamy twilight of an autumnal day that Nazareth, somewhat sad and solitary, though why she could not have told, sat upon | seemed well content to spend his life. To such the beach at the head of Floater's Bay, and questions as were put to him, he answered careamused herself by shaping figures in the mist lessly that he had no especial business any wreaths creeping in from seaward. Of a sud- where, that he was traveling to see the world, den one of these shadowy forms grew real, and and that his stay or his departure at any given from an iceberg or a man-of-war fell to the pro- time were equally uncertain. portions of a little boat, manned and commanded by a gallant young fellow, who presently leaped ashore, and holding his boat by the painter as a landsman might his horse, took off his cap and said: "Excuse me, Madam, but can you tell me who lives in the farm-house beyond the hill ?" "My father, Gabriel Pitcher," said Nazareth, with the blood tingling at her fingers' ends. "And do you think he would give a night's lodging to a belated traveler?" pursued the stranger, with a frank smile; and as the girl slightly hesitated at answering a question in her father's name, he continued, with a little pride: "My name is Richard Armstrong, and I am passenger upon the ship Anne Lovering, lying just now in the harbor above here. Finding the time hang somewhat heavy upon my hands, I took a boat this morning and set out for a cruise along the shore. I ran farther than I intended before the wind, and now that I have it ahead, and the fog coming in like a race-horse, I hardly dare venture a night-voyage in unknown waters. So, fair Mistress Pitcher, if your father will, as I said, give me shelter, and you will show me the way to his house, I shall owe you both my hearty thanks, and such farther acknowledgment as you will consent to receive." "Come with me, Sir, and I will bring you to my father, who will answer for himself," said Nazareth, not without a certain quiet pride upon her own part, and then she stood silently observant while Richard Armstrong made fast his little skiff to the boulder upon which she had been sitting, arranged his disordered dress, and finally turned to her, saying, with a smile, "Your pardon again, Mistress, for having kept you waiting, but I am ready at last." So they went silently up the rocky path, and over the hill, and through the meadow skirting the wood until, through the shining and odorous orchard, they came upon the house, and Gabriel Pitcher just coming from the barn with pails of frothing milk. To him the stranger announced his errand in the same frank and assured manner he had already told it to the girl; and, hardly waiting for the end, the farmer gave him welcome in the hearty and homely fashion of the times when words meant deeds, not sound. In the morning the guest departed, but with an invitation and a promise to repeat his visit before the Anne Lovering should again set sail for England, whence she had come. But the Anne Lovering discharged her cargo, and received another, and at last set sail for her appointed port, and Richard Armstrong lingered in the quaint, old sea-port town which at first he had pronounced so dull, and where now he But Nazareth no longer wandered alone upon the shore, or through the withering fields and woods; no longer gazed with nameless yearning across the waters, or spent her tenderness upon flowers or birds or fishes. The sun had risen upon her day, and his glory filled her life with joy and beauty. All this did not come about unquestioned. The mother, through many wise and cautious observations, convinced herself of the probity and moral worth of her daughter's lover, and the father made inquiry of the merchants to whom Armstrong gave his reference as to his worldly standing and repute. The answers to these questions were satisfactory beyond the farmer's expectations; and, in the confidence of their own bedroom, he informed his wife that Nazareth had done better for herself than ever he had expected to see her. So the wooing prospered, and at Thanksgiving time there was a quiet wedding at the old farm-house, and Nazareth Pitcher became Nazareth Armstrong, while her father, with pride and ambition, and her mother with loving trust, looked on with no thought of misgiving. It had been settled that the new-married couple were to spend the winter at the farmhouse, and in the spring to take passage for England, the bridegroom's home. But when spring came these plans were changed. Armstrong, who had in the course of the winter made several journeys to the city, for the purpose, as he said, of receiving remittances and news from home, brought back upon one occasion a very grave face and a business-looking letter announcing that his immediate presence in London was absolutely necessary to the safe conduct of his affairs. This letter he showed to Nazareth; and when she had read it, and looked confidingly into his face, he kissed her and said: "You see, sweet-heart, that I must go at “Yes, we must go,” said Nazareth, placidly. "Not we, but I," explained the husband, with a look of pain and something more upon his face. "I can not take you in your present state of health, and in this stormy season of the year. You must wait, and I will come again for you so soon as you can travel." The poor child turned as white as the snow dashing against the window, and sank suddenly into a chair. It was the first cloud between her and that glorious sun that had risen upon her life, and the shadow fell with an ominous chill upon her heart. But she said little, and her parents less, in opposition to her husband's plan; and a week later he left them, with more than one tender charge to Nazareth's parents to keep her safely until his return, and to Nazareth herself so many loving and passionate farewells that the mother at last came between them, saying, gently: "Richard, thee will make her sick. Go and return as quickly as thy business permits. Thou does not leave thy wife with strangers, but with her own people." A prophetic sentence, and one that may have risen to the memories of all that little group more than once in the days that were to follow. A letter sent back by the pilot announced that Armstrong had sailed, and another, two months later, that he had arrived at Liverpool, and after this nothing. Nazareth wrote by every opportunity, and waited with the terrible patience of woman for replies; but none came. The long, hot summer days found her still watching and waiting, a little less confidently now, but still with a patience only to end with life. Her favorite haunt was Floater's Bay; and here she would sit for hours curiously watching the waves breaking at her feet, and now and again depositing some waif of town, or vessel, or far-off wreck. Once her mother, softly following, stood watching her long and silently until she could bear it no longer, and, coming forward, drew the bright head to a pillow upon her bosom, saying: remember those who had cared and prayed and toiled for her through all her infancy and youth, and make some effort now to repay their exertions by the exertion on her own part necessary to keep life within her wasting body. To this keen and wintry argument Nazareth listened with wide open eyes, and cheeks that flushed and paled with emotion. Evidently the shock of such an appeal, following the tender and tearful lamentations of her mother, had at least recalled the dying girl's attention to matters around her which had seemed entirely forgotten or set aside. When Gabriel Pitcher ceased his daughter humbly said: "Thank you, father. I will try." And try she did to such effect that in a few days she was creeping about the house, the wreck and shadow of herself to be sure, but still alive, and with the weapons of youth and a strong constitution to aid her in the terrible fight she had yet to make against despair. The winter passed and the spring came on with more than its usual proportion of furious storms and deadly winds. Floater's Bay was crowded with relics of wrecks and trophies torn from vessels not wholly subdued by the attack of wind and wave. Nazareth, now restored to bodily health, but sadly changed from the bright and hopeful girl whom Richard Arm "Does thee think to find news of him among strong had found waiting for him upon the the floaters, child ?" "It will come in God's own time, mother," said the girl, turning her white face a little closer to that tender heart; and so they sat for hours, with never another word between them. At last Nazareth could go no longer to the shore, and when the golden autumn came and brought the anniversary of the day she first met Richard Armstrong, her desperate calm gave way at last; and shutting herself up in her own chamber, her marriage chamber, she gave way to such a terrible passion of grief as in the end nearly destroyed her life, for before morning she was desperately ill, and when she recovered it was with the loss of the great hope and joy that had hitherto sustained her. The anniversary of her wedding came and passed, and the broken-hearted mother left her daughter's bedside and came to her husband, where he sat alone gloomily gazing into the embers of a decaying fire. "We shall lose her, Gabriel; she is going fast. Our only child is dying, and none can save," moaned she. "She shall not die. How dare you say that none can save! Is this your faith in God, or in your own child?" sternly demanded the old Puritan, and, rising up, he went straight to Nazareth's bedside and confronted her not with the tender petitions of love, but the stern and requiring exhortations of his uncompromising belief, demanding that she should rouse herself from the lethargy of soul and body into which she had fallen, should prove herself worthy of her ancestry and of the holy faith in which she had been bred, that she should shore, had resumed her daily walks, and almost every sunset found her seated quietly upon her favorite rock watching the wild waves at her feet as earnestly as if some day they were sure to bring her back the peace, and joy, and hope that she so long had lost. One night her father interposed as she was leaving the house, saying: "There will be an awful storm to-night, Nazareth; I would not go down to the shore. Wait until morning." "Very well, father," replied she, and waited; but all the night long her mother heard her softly pacing her chamber, moaning and sobbing, and only pausing while she leaned from the casement out into the black and howling storm.. Suddenly she came to her father's door and called to him: "Father! father! There is a vessel driving upon White Reef! They are firing guns. I can see their lights. Oh, father, father, can nothing be done?" She was like one mad in the fierce excitement of her hope, and before her father left the house he led her back to her chamber and turned the key upon her, saying to his wife: "Go to her, Rachel, and do not leave her for one moment, if you care for her. She fancies that man is aboard the wreck, and she may be down on the beach before you know it, unless you watch." "Surely I will watch over her, Gabriel," replied the mother, somewhat reproachfully; but when, after helping her husband to gather together the articles likely to be needed upon his expedition, the good woman went to look after |