And _where_ was she going? Have you, my reader, ever crossed the mountain range between Pittsfield and Albany? And if you have, do you remember how many little villages you saw, some to the right, some to the left, and all nestled among and sheltered by those tall mountains and rocky hills, with here and there a stream of water, as clear and bright as crystal, rippling along under the shadow of the willow and the birch, or dancing headlong down some declivity? Edna was bound for one of these towns, where Uncle Phil Overton had lived for many years. He was her great uncle on her mother’s side, though she had never heard of him until she met her cousin, Mrs. Dana, in Chicago. Mrs. Dana had known Mr. Overton well, and had lived with him for a few months while she taught in the little academy which stood upon the common. He was an eccentric old man, who for years had lived among the mountains, in the same yellow farm-house, a mile, or more, from the village, which represented to him the world, and which we call Rocky Point. Edna could not tell why her thoughts kept turning to Uncle Phil as they did. In her utter despair, while listening to Aunt Jerry’s abusive greeting, her heart had cried out: “Oh, what shall I do?” “Go to Uncle Phil,” was the answer which came to her cry, and she had clung to that as a drowning man to a straw. Mrs. Dana had said he was kind and generous, if you touched the right chord. He had no wife, or children, but lived alone with a colored woman, who had been in the family for years. He was getting to be old,—sixty, if not more,—and, perhaps, he would be glad of some young creature in the house, or, at all events, would let her stay till she could look about and find something to do. Maybe she could teach in the academy. Mrs. Dana had done so, and Edna felt that her acquirements were certainly equal to those of her cousin. And so she was going to Rocky Point, and Albany lay in her way, and she stopped there until Monday, and took her watch and coral to a jeweller’s, and asked what they were worth. It was a beautiful little watch, and the chain was of exquisitely wrought gold; and, as the jeweller chanced to be an honest man, he told her frankly what it was worth, but said, as it was second-hand, he could not dispose of it so readily, and consequently could not afford to give her quite so much as if it were new. Edna accepted his offer, and, with a bitter pang, left the watch and coral lying in the glass case, and, going back to the hotel, wrote a letter to Roy, and sent him one hundred dollars.