“I remember now,” the young man broke the silence by saying. “I have seen you before, and that good woman you speak of as Polly called you Nancy. That is one of the things I remember. I don’t know what came next, for I drifted off into that dreamy world I have been in for so long.” “Yes, almost every one calls me Nancy, but my name is Agnes, Agnes Kennedy.” “It is a pretty name. Mine is Parker Willett. The boys call me Park. Now will you tell me how long you have lived here and something about yourself?” “We came from near Carlisle, Pennsylvania. My father had to give up our old home, and we came out here together more than a year, nearly two years, ago. We lived for a time in another settlement, but it was raided by the Indians and most of the houses were burned. My father was badly hurt at the same time, and he has never been the same since. Some of our good friends were coming this way, and my mother’s father some years ago settled not very far from Marietta. He left some property that we thought belonged to my mother, so we were going right there, but some one else claims it. Then Polly came, and we took up this land and built this little cabin; but when summer came, we were afraid of the Indians, and went back to the fort. We stayed there till we thought it would be safe to come back here, and so we came.” “And found your home had been occupied?” “Yes, but we thought it was Jerry Hunter who had been here. He said he would come and look after things once in a while.” “It was I, you see.” “Yes. What did you do it for? It wasn’t right to try to steal the home from other people.” “No, it wasn’t; but you see I didn’t know I was stealing. I feel very much mortified that I should have persisted in getting in. It was this way: a man named Muirhead, over across the river, told me that if I were looking for a good place to settle that I could find it here, for there were some persons who had come from Pennsylvania and had put up a cabin and had begun to clear up, but they had given up the place and had gone back home, and I could have the place for the taking. I came over here and explored, and found it just as he said--the house shut up, and things pretty well cleared out, so I took possession.” He paused. “I was misled, because he said it was a man and his daughter, a young slip of a girl who couldn’t stand the rough country.” “You say Muirhead was the name?” “Yes.” Agnes gave her head a defiant shake. “We might have known it,” she said.