Not one of the children would take the letter to Herman Hall, and the hostler was too shabby a looking fellow to be sent on such an errand to so grand a place, so Martha’s lover, Garry Lovel, a young man who worked Mr. Green’s farm _on shares_, undertook to deliver it himself. There need not have been such confabulations on the subject, for Garry did not get farther than the porter’s lodge, an awful gloomy looking place, Garry said, and the porter was as awful-looking and gloomy as the lodge. He was told that an answer would be sent in the course of the day, and he therefore need not wait, and the young man said he put wings to his feet and a quarter of a mile between him and the porter before he got to an ordinary walk. “If I were you, Mister Arthur,” said Garry, “I never would set foot in yon hall, for there is something wrong there. I can’t believe that honest people would shut themselves up in that dull, musty sort of way, unless they had something to conceal. You had far better turn farmer, here is a fine chance, for neighbor Fielding wants to go West, and he would rent his farm for a trifle.” “Do take it,” said Mrs. Green. “No,” said Martha, blushing; “let him take father’s farm on shares, that will be easier, for I want Garry to take the next farm.” Then there was a merry shout of laughter, and the boys declared she was right, and that Arthur should stay with them, and they would plough and reap for him while he tinkered about, shot birds, and caught fish. Toward evening the answer to his letter came, he was requested to call at Herman Hall at ten o’clock the next day, and then he might decide whether the terms would suit him. At ten o’clock he was at the porter’s lodge, where the solemn-looking personage who had so awed Garry stood ready to receive him. A low, garden-chaise, with a pair of handsome ponies, was waiting for him, into which he seated himself. The ride was enchantment. No fairy dream could have conjured up the beautiful scenery which opened to his view at every turn of the road. Arthur was lost in rapture, he forgot his humble circumstances and his slender fortunes, for his whole soul was filled with lofty thoughts, he seemed elevated to the companionship of angels, and he gloried that he was a man after God’s own image. “Angels,” thought he, as the carriage moved slowly along, “could not feel happier, nor have purer emotions than I enjoy this moment. I have had the fear of God before me and have reverenced Him always, but here I love Him—_these_ are His glorious works. Cities are made by men.” Arthur had lived in cities always, and his little excursions, hastily made, and very limited in duration, were for the purpose of fishing or shooting, and always with a dull companion, like Snow, who fished and shot in the same way that he kept books—pursuing the one act, the one thought which he proposed doing.