"Thar', thar', child, I didn't mean to deny ye. But I feel bitter to-day--hard and bitter--as I used to in days gone by, when your mother died, turned off by them that were ashamed of yer father. If you'll only keep like yer mother, you may do what you will. _She_ went to school, and she knew more than a dozen fine-lady scholars; but it didn't spoil her. May be I've done wrong to bring you up the way I have--to visit my experience and my doubts on your young head. We must all live and learn for ourselves. Go to school, if you want to. I'll try and get along without my little cubbie for a year or two." "It's hard, father--hard for me--but I wish it." Pride was steeling the heart of the forest maiden. "But are you able, father; can you pay the expense." This thought never came to her until after she had his promise. "Yes, I'm able--and if it's done, it shall be done in the best style. I haven't cut down all the pine timber I've set afloat for the last fifteen year, without laying up something for my cub. I want you to dress as well as any you see, and study whatever you like, and play lady to yer heart's content. You'd better find a dress-maker, the first thing, and not be stared at every time you step out of the door. Get yourself silks and satins, girl, and hold your head up like the queen of the prairie." When Captain Wilde returned up the river, he and his sable suite made a melancholy journey; for the light of their eyes, the joy of their hearts, was left behind them. A young ladies' seminary, "a flourishing young institution, beautifully located in a healthy region, with spacious grounds enjoying the salubrious river-breezes," etc., etc., held prisoner, the wild bird of the forest. "Where's your daughter?" asked Ben Perkins of his employer, when he saw the returning party land without Alice. His face was blanched to a dead-white, for he expected certainly to hear that she had been claimed as his bride by Philip Moore. "Yer story was true, Ben, though I did ye the wrong to doubt it. Alice will never be the wife of that counter-jumper. But she'll never be yours, neither; so you might as well give up, first as last. Go off somewhere, Ben, and find somebody else; that's my advice." "Look-a-here, Captain Wilde, I know you mean the best, and that my chance is small; but I tell you, sir, jest as long as Alice is free to choose, and I've got breath and sense to try for her, I shan't give her up. Never, sir! I'll work my fingers off to serve you and her--I'll wait years--I'll do any thing you ask, only so you won't lay any thing in my way." The raftsman looked pityingly in the haggard face of the speaker--the face which a year ago was so bright and boyish. He saw working in those dark lineaments, in the swart blood coursing under the olive skin, in the gleam of the black eyes, passions difficult to check, which might urge him in future years to yet other crimes than the one into which he had already been betrayed.