After much difficulty and fatigue, she arrived at the cabin of a squatter, which she knew to have been _located_ for many years on or near her line. The visit of the owner was not unsafe, for the man was a bee-hunter, trapper, and timber thief of the most gentle manners, and utterly despised all efforts at clearing beyond the acre. His pigs—his only stock—ran wild in the woods, and he cared nothing for real estate so long as there were trees left for a deer-cover, timber to be stolen, bees to be limed, and a bounty for wolves. He looked upon a new settlement as only another market and prowling ground, incommoding him in nothing, and likely to increase the dainties of his larder by an occasional chicken and eggs. He lived for the _present_—dreamed neither of the _past_ nor the _future_—and nothing but habitual laziness prevented him from being perpetually peripatetic. He was absent from home when Mrs. —— arrived, and she was received with back-woods hospitality by his wife;—for even this creature, whose only beverage was “Le vin ordinaire de ce pays ci—un liqueur abominable qu’on appelle _Ouiskey_!” actually had a wife, and an affectionate one, who had resided on or near the spot since the days of Jefferson! After a comfortable night of repose upon a bundle of dried leaves, in her riding suit, Mrs. —— arose, and made preparations _for viewing the property_. No lady neglects the toilet, even in the most distressing circumstances. I have several times heard death preferred to the loss of a fine head of hair, in the wards of a hospital, and it is not to be supposed that Mrs. R. was unprovided with a looking-glass. She proceeded to withdraw the several appurtenances of the dressing-room from her well-stored portmanteau, narrowly and wonderingly watched by her kind hostess. But the instant the mirror appeared, the lonely denizen of the wilds exclaimed, with startling energy— “Oh! dear Mrs. R.! That’s a looking-glass! Do let me look in it! I have not seen my face plainly for thirty years! I go down to the spring sometimes and try to see myself; but the water is so rough that it don’t look at all like me! Do let me look at it! Do now!” The glass was handed to the delighted woman. She cast but one glance upon it. The mirror fell in fragments on the floor, the unfortunate creature fainted and fell back on the rude bench behind her, and Mrs. R. visited her ample domain, that day, with a head half combed.