"A Bergan can do what he pleases, child. He is not obliged to walk by rule and measure, like people whose pedigree stops with their grandfathers. If a king chooses to make a box, a barrel, or a piece of furniture, for his own use, it is not a meanness, but an eccentricity." And the long word not only floored Brick's last remaining doubt, but furnished him with the means of silencing other critics. In view of carpentry and tinkering, dignified with the sonorous title of "exkingtricities," nothing was left to the quarter but to roll its eyes and shut its mouth in mute amazement. On the morning of the third day, the sky pushed aside its gray veil of clouds, and smiled once more upon the wet and melancholy earth. Thereupon the latter quickly dried up some of its tears, and made what shift for joy it could with the remainder. Every pool reflected a bit of the sky's wide smile, or the pleasant stir of overhanging foliage. The grand old evergreen oaks around Bergan Hall shook from their far-reaching boughs broken sunlight and dancing shadows, fresh breeze and shining raindrops, in nearly equal measure. The whisper of the pine-woods became a song rather than a sigh;--or, if it were a sigh, it was of that pleasant kind which struggles up unconsciously from a heart a little overfull of pleasure. Even the long streamers of gray moss decked themselves with prismatic jewels, and forgot to be mournful. "If you do not mind a little mud," said the Major, at the dinner-table, "we will order our horses, and ride over to Berganton this afternoon. You must be tired of being cooped up in the house, by this time, in spite of your ready knack at finding occupation and amusement where most people would gape their heads off with ennui. Besides, it is high time that you should see something of the neighborhood, outside our own plantation,--as well as the village which your ancestors founded. To be sure, there is precious little to see,--Berganton is not what it was once,--but I shall be glad to show you that little, and also, to introduce you to some of my old acquaintances." As the two gentlemen were riding through the mutilated avenue, Bergan could not help asking if the trees which had formerly arched and shaded it had been felled on account of decay.