"No, I s'pose not. Women has husbands to think for them an' gals needn't think about anything but beaux. Did you have any over there?" nodding her head. "Body o' me! but you've grown tall. You ain't a little girl any more. And we'll have to look you up a nice beau." "Must everybody be married?" Norah put both hands on her lips and laughed. "Well, I don't know as there's a _must_, only old maids ain't of much account an' get sticks poked at 'em pretty often. I wouldn't be one for any money. I'd go out in the woods and ask the first man I met to marry me." "How old must you be?" asked Daffodil soberly, thinking of Miss Wharton. "Well, if you ain't married by twenty, lovers ain't so plenty, and at twenty-four you're pushed out of the door and at thirty you might as well go down. But you're not likely to have to ring the bell for them. My! but you're pretty, only I wish your cheeks were redder. I guess you've been housed up too much. I want to hear all about the sort of time you had! Wasn't the old gentleman a little stiff?" "Oh, no. He seemed so much like great-grandfather to me. I loved him a great deal. And there was a splendid housekeeper. The maid was sweet and she cried when I came away." "Little Girl," called her father. "Oh, are you going to ride away? Come over to-night. Grandad is going to the meeting where they will spout like a leaky gargoyle. Or stay, your father will go too. I'll come over instead." Daffodil mounted Dolly, who certainly had not grown fat in her absence. Felix had attended to that. "Dear old Dolly!" patting her neck, and the mare whinnied as if overjoyed. "You haven't forgotten, dear old Dolly;" and Daffodil was minded to lean over and give her a hug as she had times before. "We'll go down town. We are stretching out our borders. Here is the new dock. We are building boats for the western trade, and here is the shipyard." It had doubled itself since spring. Everybody seemed hurrying to and fro. Brawny, sunburned men with shirt sleeves rolled nearly to the shoulders, jesting, whistling, sometimes swearing, the younger ones pausing now and then to indulge in a few jig steps. There were boats loading with a variety of freight, but largely whiskey. Carrick took some drawings out of his memorandum book. "Look them over sharp, Cap'n Boyle, though I think you'll find them all right." There was the long point, the two rivers flowing into the Ohio, the murmur like the undertone of the sea. And over beyond, far beyond an endless stretch. There were some Indian wigwams, there were long reaches of cornfields yet uncut, a few stacked; apples ripening in the mellow sunshine, a wild kind of fruit, great tangles of grapevine enough to smother any tree. "It is beautiful," she said with deep feeling. "Oh, do you suppose there'll ever be anything--over there--like a town, houses and such?" She nodded upward. That was her portion.