The prideful Mrs. Griggs from her elevation, literal and metaphorical, supplemented all this by the creditable statements that Nate had turned twenty-one, had cast his vote, and had a right to a choice at the Cross-roads. Then she chirruped to the rawboned sorrel mare, and jogged off down the road, followed by the frisky colt, whose long, slender legs when in motion seemed so fragile that it was startling to witness the temerity with which he kicked up his frolicsome heels. The dogs, with that odd canine affectation of having just perceived the intruders, pursued them with sudden asperity, barking and snapping, and at last came trotting nimbly home, wagging their tails and with a dutiful mien. Mrs. Dicey went back into the house, and sat for a time in envious meditation, fairly silenced, and with her apron flung over her face. Then she fell to lamenting that she had been working all her life for nothing, and it would take so little to make the family comfortable, and that her children seemed "disabled somehow in thar heads, an' though always rootin' around in the woods, hed never fund no gold mine nor nuthin' else out o' the common." Birt kept silent, but the gloom and trouble in his face suddenly touched her heart. "Thar now, Birt!" she exclaimed, with a world of consolation in her tones, "I don't mean ter say that, nuther. Ain't I a-thinkin' day an' night o' how smart ye be--stiddy an' sensible an' hard-workin' jes' like a man--an' what a good son ye hev been to me! An' the t'other chill'n air good too, an' holps me powerful, though Rufe air hendered some, by the comical natur o' the critter." She broke out with a cheerful laugh, in which Birt could not join. "An' I mus' be gittin' breakfus fur the chill'n," she said, kneeling down on the hearth, and uncovering the embers which had been kept all night under the ashes. "Don't ye fret, sonny. I ain't goin' ter grudge Nate his gold mine. I reckon sech a good son ez ye be, an' a gold mine too, would be too much luck fur one woman. Don't ye fret, sonny." Birt's self-control gave way abruptly. He rose in great agitation, and started toward the door. Then he paused, and broke forth with passionate incoherence, telling amidst sobs and tears the story of the woodland's munificence to him, and how he had flung the gift away. In recounting the hopes that had deluded him, the fears that had gnawed, and the despair in which they were at last merged, he did not notice, for a time, her look as she still knelt motionless before the embers on the hearth. He faltered, and grew silent; then stared dumbly at her. She seemed as one petrified. Her face had blanched; its lines were as sharp and distinct as if graven in stone; only her eyes spoke, an eloquent anguish. Her faculties were numbed for a moment. But presently there was a quiver in her chin, and her voice rang out. And yet did she understand? did she realize the loss of the mine? For it was not this that she lamented