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“Excuse me, but I fear I’ve taken the wrong road. I’m going to Green Springs.”

“I reckon you’ve taken the wrong road, wherever you’re going,” returned the young lady, having apparently made up her mind to resent each of Jack’s perfections as a separate impertinence: “this is a PRIVATE road.” She drew herself fairly up here, although gurgled at in the ear and pinched in the arm by her companion.

“I beg your pardon,” said Jack, meekly. “I see I’m trespassing on your grounds. I’m very sorry. Thank you for telling me. I should have gone on a mile or two farther, I suppose, until I came to your house,” he added, innocently.

“A mile or two! You’d have run chock ag’in’ our gate in another minit,” said the short-lipped one, eagerly. But a sharp nudge from her companion sent her back again into cover, where she waited expectantly for another crushing retort from her protector.

But, alas! it did not come. One cannot be always witty, and Jack looked distressed. Nevertheless, he took advantage of the pause.

“It was so stupid in me, as I think your brother”–looking at Short-lip–“very carefully told me the road.”

The two girls darted quick glances at each other. “Oh, Bawb!” said the first speaker, in wearied accents,–“THAT limb! He don’t keer.”

“But he DID care,” said Hamlin, quietly, “and gave me a good deal of information. Thanks to him, I was able to see that ferny wood that’s so famous–about two miles up the road. You know–the one that there’s a poem written about!”

The shot told! Short-lip burst into a display of dazzling little teeth and caught the other girl convulsively by the shoulders. The superior girl bent her pretty brows, and said, “Eunice, what’s gone of ye? Quit that!” but, as Hamlin thought, paled slightly.

“Of course,” said Hamlin, quickly, “you know–the poem everybody’s talking about. Dear me! let me see! how does it go?” The rascal knit his brows, said, “Ah, yes,” and then murmured the verse he had lately sung quite as musically.

Short-lip was shamelessly exalted and excited. Really she could scarcely believe it! She already heard herself relating the whole occurrence. Here was the most beautiful young man she had ever seen–an entire stranger–talking to them in the most beautiful and natural way, right in the lane, and reciting poetry to her sister! It was like a novel–only more so. She thought that Cynthia, on the other hand, looked distressed, and–she must say it–“silly.”

All of which Jack noted, and was wise. He had got all he wanted–at present. He gathered up his reins.

“Thank you so much, and your brother, too, Miss Cynthia,” he said, without looking up. Then, adding, with a parting glance and smile, “But don’t tell Bob how stupid I was,” he swiftly departed.

In half an hour he was at the Green Springs Hotel. As he rode into the stable yard, he noticed that the coach had only just arrived, having been detained by a land-slip on the Summit road. With the recollection of Bob fresh in his mind, he glanced at the loungers at the stage office. The boy was not there, but a moment later Jack detected him among the waiting crowd at the post-office opposite. With a view of following up his inquiries, he crossed the road as the boy entered the vestibule of the post-office. He arrived in time to see him unlock one of a row of numbered letter-boxes rented by subscribers, which occupied a partition by the window, and take out a small package and a letter. But in that brief glance Mr. Hamlin detected the printed address of the “Excelsior Magazine” on the wrapper. It was enough. Luck was certainly with him.

He had time to get rid of the wicked sparkle that had lit his dark eyes, and to lounge carelessly towards the boy as the latter broke open the package, and then hurriedly concealed it in his jacket-pocket, and started for the door. Mr. Hamlin quickly followed him, unperceived, and, as he stepped into the street, gently tapped him on the shoulder. The boy turned and faced him quickly. But Mr. Hamlin’s eyes showed nothing but lazy good-humor.