“Peter, how dare you come into the parlor with the log? Do you not know it is Scipio’s work, you blockhead? And what did you bring in such a log as that for? Did you mean to break your back, to save me the trouble of breaking your head?” The boy turned his face around to Mr. Fayerweather, who stood aghast at seeing him; for the streaked and clouded visage which met his view, did not belong to Peter, but to his own son, who had involuntarily doffed the milled cap from habitual reverence as his father spoke. “Why, Mr. Fayerweather, it’s George, if I’m alive!” screamed his mother; “and he has cut off all his beautiful curls, and his face is all streaked with I don’t know what! It will never come white again. What upon earth has got into the boy!” George was silent for a moment; at length he muttered, “I don’t mean to be dressed in girl’s clothes again.” “You are right, my man,” said his father, speaking with some difficulty, and shaking his son’s hand, he continued; “now you make me proud of you; but you need not wear Peter’s clothes, and you should not have lifted a log as big as a cider-barrel—it might have strained your back.” The boy’s countenance brightened as his father spoke; at the last words he held his head boldly up and said, “It did not hurt me at all, sir—I can lift a log twice as big as that. I mean to bring in all your wood, to pay for the looking-glass, I—” his lip quivered, and he could not finish. The father’s eyes twinkled; he coughed, and made one or two ineffectual efforts to speak; but all would not do—and he was obliged to quit the room precipitately, to hide his emotion. In a moment he was heard calling out to Scipio, in a voice between a sob and a shout, to bring out the sleigh; and now, his eyes dried and his throat cleared, Mr. Fayerweather was himself again. “Come, my dear,” he said to madam as he returned, “put on your cloaks, you and Amy, and we’ll all have a sleigh-ride. There’s the moon just up, and it will be as light as day; the sleighing is like glass. George, my man, be quick, and go put on your own clothes, and wash your face—I intend you shall drive.” The sleigh was brought out, and they all got in; madam and her niece on the back seat, and Mr. Fayerweather and the two boys on the front, where, having seen them comfortably seated, well cloaked and blanketed, their feet at the hot bricks, of which Vi’let always kept a supply at the kitchen fire, summer and winter, the reader and I will leave them, being somewhat in haste to finish this part of my story.