Miss Bensley now set out upon the table the varied contents of her basket. “This honey,” she said, showing some as limpid as water, “was found a day or two ago in uncle’s woods--wild honey--isn’t it beautiful?” Mrs. Ashburn fixed her eyes on it without speaking; but her husband, who just then came in, did not command himself so far. “Where did you say you got that honey?” he asked. “In our woods,” repeated Clarissa; “I never saw such quantities; and a good deal of it as clear and beautiful as this.” “I thought as much!” said Ashburn angrily: “and now, Clary Bensley,” he added, “you’ll just take that cursed honey back to your uncle, and tell him to keep it, and eat it, and I hope it will choke him! and if I live, I’ll make him rue the day he ever touched it.” Miss Bensley gazed on him, lost in astonishment. She could think of nothing but that he must have gone suddenly mad; and the idea made her instinctively hasten her steps toward the pony. “Well! if you won’t take it, I’ll send it after ye!” cried Ashburn, who had lashed himself into a rage; and he hurled the little jar, with all the force of his powerful arm, far down the path by which Clarissa was about to depart, while his poor wife tried to restrain him with a piteous “Oh, father! don’t! don’t!” Then, recollecting himself a little,--for he is far from being habitually brutal,--he made an awkward apology to the frightened girl. “I ha’n’t nothing agin _you_, Miss Bensley; you’ve always been kind to me and mine; but that old devil of an uncle of yours, that can’t bear to let a poor man live,--I’ll larn him who he’s got to deal with! Tell him to look out, for he’ll have reason!” He held the pony while Clarissa mounted, as if to atone for his rudeness to herself; but he ceased not to repeat his denunciations against Mr. Keene as long as she was within hearing. As she paced over the logs, Ashburn, his rage much cooled by this ebullition, stood looking after her. “I swan!” he exclaimed; “if there ain’t that very feller that went with us to the bee-tree, leading Clary Bensley’s horse over the cross-way!” * * * * *