in her eyes; and taking her father’s hand, she kissed it tenderly.
Mr. Bentley drew his hand away, not angrily, but as one who shrinks from any unusual display of feeling. His action was not that of a cold man, but of one who shielded deep feelings from a sudden assault.
“I did not say this, Gillian. All seasons of life have their blessings, if we only learn to use them. But see how quietly we are drawing toward the hills. In a little time we shall be on shore.”
Gillian started up and went into the cabin, a litte excited and eager to leave the vessel. New scenes were before her, and at her age novelty had a vivid charm, come in what form it might.
An hour after Gillian disappeared from the deck, the sloop put in to her port, a little cove breaking up between the mountains, that had tected to overtop each other at a distance, but which now revealed a narrow valley opening tick into the country, with the germ of a village living at its mouth and crowding close down to the water. A wharf, barricaded with piles of split wood ready for shipment, received the slop, which took the inhabitants by surprise, and created no little excitement among the wood-cutters, who hung around a grocery-store oo the wharf. The arrival of a strange sloop Was something, but the two persons, who stood upon the deck, were so unlike the passengers usually brought to the little harbor, that they excited a general and lively curiosity.
Before Mr. Bentley and his daughter could reach the wharf, half a dozen men had boarded the sloop, while a group of children, who had heen shying oyster-shells into the river and fishing with pin-hooks from the timbers, crowded close, with open mouths and looks of common wonder. Mr. Bentley inquired of a man, who approached him first, if any conveyance could be obtained at the village for the interior; but the man, true to his species, answered by another question:
“Was the gentleman straight from New York”
Mr. Bentley smiled for the first time he felt Completely at home. This peculiarity of his countrymen went to his heart like a welcome.
“Yes! he was directly from New York.”
“Come from further along, though, I reckon?” rejoined the countryman.
“Yes”
“Down East, mebby?”
“Not from Italy.”
“Whar?” cried the man, in open-mouthed perplexity; “Whar?”
“Beyond seas,” answered Mr. Bentley, good- humoredly; for the man’s curiosity awoke a thousand kindly feelings.
“Beyond seas? Oh! yes. Travel all the way by land or water, if I ain’t too bold?”
Gillian’s face sparkled. The conversation delighted her.
“By water all the way,” answered Mr. Bentley, reproving her with a glance.
“Come in this sloop? Wall, she don’t look as if she’d had much of a tussle with the weather, anyhow. If ye hain’t no more use for her, what'll ye take, ha?” .
“She isn’t for sale, I think. But you can ask the captain. Now pray inform me if there is any chance of obtaining a conveyance, which will take myself and daughter some twenty miles into the country?”
“Your daughter, ha? It kinder struck me that the gal must be something to you. Handsome as a pictur; ain’t she, though?
Gillian laughed outright, and the countryman drowned her voice in an answering laugh.
“Knew it the minit I set eyes on you a standing together,” he said, addressing her directly.
“Spose you calculate to ketch a beau in these parts? Well, there ain’t the least mite of danger but you'll do il, right off the reel. Now, how old might you be?”
Gillian was half frightened out of her merri- ment hy his ardent curiosity. But she answered, “That he had not yet replied to her father about the carriage.”
“Carriage?” answered the man, sinking both hands into his jacket and ejaculating his surprise in a broken whistle. “Why, I reckon the only carriage you’ll be likely to get in these parts “ll be a Pennsylvania wagon, with two chairs sot in behind, and a board laid across for the driver; that’s the kind of carriages our gals ride in.”
“Well, pnpa, I suppose that will do,” cried Gillian, delighted with the idea of a ride in the open air, and still more delighted with the promise of this novel conveyance.
But the countryman was not to be so easily put off.
“Any more family?” he inquired, turning to Mr. Bentley.
“I will tell you that, and give a silver dollar in to the bargain, if you bring me a respectable conveyance to the wharf, in just twenty minutes,” said Bentley, looking at his watch.
“But how much ’ll you agree to give for the team, with a good-looking driver that your gal won’t be ashamed to ride behind—throwing in horse-feed and a bite on the way?”
