Jeanie M’Clean, half a mile on one side, and the O’Neills, half a mile the other, were the nearest neighbors, so that, with her father busy all day in the woods hunting or clearing his land, it was rather a lonely life for the girl used to a family of brothers and sisters, and with a mother to consult with and direct her. Yet it was a very free life; and the little log-cabin an easy house to keep, consequently Agnes could almost daily find time to run through the woods for a chat with Jeanie M’Clean, though it was to good-natured, kind-hearted Polly O’Neill that she took her troubles. Polly, with just a taste of the brogue and her cheery face, was a good companion when one felt doncy. Nothing seemed to bother Polly; and if her four children, the eldest nothing more than a baby, all clung to her skirts at once, it did not seem to interfere with her movements. Jimmy O’Neill had set up his forge there in the wilderness, and as the blacksmith was a very important figure in the community where men must make many of their own farming implements, there was generally a company to be seen and news to be had at Polly’s, and Agnes congratulated herself that she lived so near. CHAPTER II THE HOUSEWARMING It was to Polly that Agnes went one afternoon when her father had been absent all day and the gloom of the great encircling forest had oppressed her more than usual. Polly was bustling about, singing happily, when Agnes appeared at the door of the cabin. “Is it yersel’, Nancy, child? Come right in,” was the greeting. “Jerry, lad, get a stool for Nancy. The bairnies do be all in a pother agen I get their bit of supper, so I’ll go on with it, Nancy.” “Isn’t it early for supper?” asked Agnes, sitting down and picking up the baby who was crawling about on the puncheon floor. “Early it is; but if there was ten meals the day, they’d get hungry between ’em, and the porritch is all gone, so I’m makin’ more, for when they see the pot’s empty they begin to cry. As if,” she surveyed the group smiling, “their mother didn’t know where to get more. And how goes the world with ye, Nancy?” “It goes a wee bit dour to-day,” said Agnes, sighing. “Father has been gone all day to the far clearing, and there’s no one for me to talk to but the squirrels and the birds.” “And it’s lame yer tongue gets from the long rest. Sure you’ve a nimble tongue, I notice, Nancy, and it’s hard to keep it restin’.” Agnes laughed. “So it is, but I didn’t suppose you had noticed that.” “It ’ud be hard not. I mind the last time ye were here with Archie M’Clean that sorry a word could he get in.” “Oh, Archie, he doesn’t talk even when one is still, and to sit hours at a time gazing at another is not to my liking.” “Puir Archie; he uses his eyes if not his tongue, and what is one better than the other to use?” “I’d rather a wagging tongue than a blinking eye; it’s more cheerful,” responded Agnes.