Ursula was at length prevailed on to repeat the ballad, which she did in a style so simple and unaffected, that, ere she had finished, the young artist had made up his mind, that listening to a sweet voice by moonlight, beneath a wide-spreading elm, with the stars peeping down between the dancing leaves, and the soft evening breeze fanning his temples, was far more delightful, than to recline in his soft-cushioned box at the Opera, listening even to the delicious notes of a Pico, with bright jewels, and still brighter eyes flashing around him, and his cheek kissed by the inconstant air wafted from the coquettish fan in the hands of smiling beauty. And, moreover, that the book of human nature, to be studied in the country, certainly opened very beautifully. The evening passed off pleasantly. Leland confided to the old man his poverty, and desire to obtain scholars in his art sufficient to enable him to pay his board while in the village; that he had been employed by several gentlemen to sketch scenes from nature, and that having heard much of the beautiful views in the neighborhood, he had been induced to visit the village. But the old man thought he had much better turn farmer, and offered to hire him for eight dollars a month, as he needed a hand in haying time. This offer, however, the young man could not accept, being, as he said, already engaged to complete the drawings. Then the old man told how his fathers had lived there before him, and how by hard labor he had been able to keep the old homestead his own; and that his daughter, Hetty, had been living with a great heiress, who was very fond of her, and who had given her leave to spend the summer at home; and how she had come, and brought a poor girl with her, who made caps, and such gim-cracks, and that (in a whisper) his old woman thought she had never had any bringing-up, poor thing!" When Leland returned to his lodgings, in the village, he thought over his evening adventure with great pleasure. The simplicity of the old people charmed him; Hetty he thought a modest, pretty girl; but it was the little cap-maker who somehow or other dwelt most forcibly in his mind. "She is certainly quite handsome, notwithstanding she is a little, a very little, cross-eyed--it is a pity!" And Leland leaned out the window, and whistled "Auld Robin Gray." "How pathetically she warbled the line, But she looked in my face 'til my heart was like to break;" and Leland threw off one slipper, and stopped to hum it over again. "Her voice only wants a little cultivation"--off goes the other slipper, and out goes the head into the moonlight, and in it comes again. "Well, I must teach her to draw--her own patterns, at any rate. Pleasant old couple; the idea of hiring _me_ for eight dollars a month--capital!" and in a fit of laughter he threw himself upon the bed. "What a roguish pair of eyes, after all, the little cap-maker has!"