ittle window-panes, the ragged carpet made of odds and ends patriotically arranged to represent the American eagle holding stars and stripes in his firm and bounteous claws, with an open beak that seemed saying-" Here they be!-'cordin' as you behave yourselves!-stars or stripes !"all within was more familiar to his eye than household words, for it was the old room he had occupied the year before he left America. He stepped quickly across the chamber to a certain beam, where he had, fifteen years before, written four initial letters, and intertwined them so curiously that the Gordian knot was easy weaving in comparison. The Gordian one was cut, and this had been painted and effaced for ever. Swan returned to his trunk with a half-sigh. He selected a suit of clothes which he had purchased in Boston, put aside travellingdress and looked out of the window occasionally as he dressed. It was a warm, sunny day. The Indian summer had relented and come back to take one more peep, before winter should shut the door on all the glowing beauty of the year. A dozen persons were crossing the street. He knew every one of them at sight. Of course there was no forgetting old Dan Sears, with whom he had forty times gone a-fishing; nor Phil Sanborn, who had stood behind the counter with him two years at the old store. Though Phil had grown stout, there was the same look. There was the old store, too, looking exactly as it did when he went away, the sign a little more worn in the gilding. He seemed to smell the mingled odours of rum, salt-fish, and liquorice, with which every beam and rafter was permeated. And there was old Walsh going home drunk this minute! with a salt mackerel, as usual, for his family-dinner. He wrote a short note as he dressed and shaved leisurely. The note was to Dorcas, and only said-"Meet me under the old pear-tree before sunset to-night"-and was signed with his initials. This note he at first placed on the little mantel-shelf in plain sight, so that he should not forget to take it down-stairs when he went to breakfast. Afterwards he put it into his pocket-book. His dress But the dress of 1811 has not arrived at the picturesque, and could never be classical under any circumstances. He finished his toilet, and went into the diningroom just as everybody else had dined, and asked the landlord what he could have for breakfast. Even then, the landlord hardly looked curious. Taft was certainly failing. In five minutes he found himself at a well-known little table, with the tavern-staple for odd meals, ham and eggs, flanked with sweetmeats and cake, just as he remembered of old. He nibbled at the sharp barberries lying black in the boiled molasses, and listened eagerly to the talk about British aggressions which was going on in the bar-room. Suddenly a face looked in at the low window. Swan sprang forward, kicked over his chair, and knocked the earthen pepper-box off the table. Before he reached the window, however, the shadow had passed round the corner of the house, out of sight. It was only a youthful figure, surmounted by a broad-brimmed straw hat, that half hid two sweet, sparkling eyes. Ah! but they were Dorcas's eyes! He picked up the pepper-box, and mechani. cally sifted its contents into the barberry-dish. (To be continued.) ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. Sleep POETRY received and accepted, with thanks.-"Left London: Printed by Rogerson and Tuxford, 216, Strand. |