“Margaret--Miss Cooper!” said the speaker, who was a young rustic, probably twenty or twenty-one years of age, of tall, good person, a handsome face, which was smooth, though of dark complexion, and lightened by an eye of more than ordinary size and intelligence. His tones were those of one whose sensibilities were fine and active, and it would not have called for much keen observation to have seen that his manner, in approaching and addressing the maiden, was marked with some little trepidation. She, on the contrary, seemed too familiar with his homage, or too well satisfied of his inferiority, to deign much attention to his advances. She answered his salutation coldly, and was preparing to move forward, when his words again called for her reluctant notice. “I have looked for you, Margaret, full an hour. Mother sent me after you to beg that you will come there this evening. Old Jenks has come up from the river, and brought a store of fine things--there's a fiddle for Ned, and Jason Lightner has a flute, and I--I have a small lot of books, Margaret, that I think will please you.” “I thank you, William Hinkley, and thank your mother, but I can not come this evening.” “But why not, Margaret?--your mother's coming--she promised for you too, but I thought you might not get home soon enough to see her, and so I came out to seek you.” “I am very sorry you took so much trouble, William, for I cannot come this evening.” “But why not, Margaret? You have no other promise to go elsewhere have you?” “None,” was the indifferent reply. “Then--but, perhaps, you are not well, Margaret?” “I am quite well, I thank you, William Hinkley, but I don't feel like going out this evening. I am not in the humor.” Already, in the little village of Charlemont, Margaret Cooper was one of the few who were permitted to indulge in humors, and William Hinkley learned the reason assigned for her refusal, with an expression of regret and disappointment, if not of reproach. An estoppel, which would have been so conclusive in the case of a city courtier, was not sufficient, however, to satisfy the more frank and direct rustic, and he proceeded with some new suggestions, in the hope to change her determination. “But you'll be so lonesome at home, Margaret, when your mother's with us. She'll be gone before you can get back, and--” “I'm never lonesome, William, at least I'm never so well content or so happy as when I'm alone,” was the self-satisfactory reply. “But that's so strange, Margaret. It's so strange that you should be different from everybody else. I often wonder at it, Margaret; for I know none of the other girls but love to be where there's a fiddle, and where there's pleasant company. It's so pleasant to be where everybody's pleased; and then, Margaret, where one can talk so well as you, and of so many subjects, it's a greater wonder still that you should not like to be among the rest.”