'I don't care what becomes of you or me either;' and then took a seat on the stone, leaned his chin on the head of his hickory staff, and looked at the grass and the stones and the old fence, and occasionally at a stray bird, as though there was something wrong about them. He waited a good long hour, in thinking, and hesitating, and vexing himself, and then trying to make the best of it; and finally picked up his bundle and started off, not in the direction of the town, but straight towards Mr. Rutherford's. It was late in the afternoon before he accomplished his journey, and found himself entering the gate which opened into the extensive grounds surrounding, as it was commonly called, the Rutherford House. He had never seen any thing like it before, and a more pleasant or home-looking place was seldom to be met with. There was a beautiful green lawn, with a long broad gravel road extending to the house; and there were large trees, spreading their long and drooping branches, scattered thickly over the lawn and lining the road, and the house was nestled beneath the shelter of some of the very largest and most graceful of the trees. It made no pretensions to architectural beauty, but it was large and well built; and the multitude of outhouses, and extensive range of barns and sheds, all in good order, spoke of room for man and beast, and of comfort too. Bill thought nothing of all this, his heart was full of misgivings as to how he should be received; to him it was all fine, too fine for the like of him; and he looked at some of the outbuildings, as he passed along, to see if there was any place he could feel at home in, for the night. George Rutherford, the inheritor of this lovely spot, had of earthly goods a bounteous store; but he had, also, what many an inheritor of earthly substance does not possess, a noble heart, large in its embrace of his fellow-man in all conditions, ever going out in its kindly feelings towards some object of benevolence; humble in every thought connected with himself, and with devoted zeal seeking to aid, to comfort, and to gratify the most menial of his dependents, and the most degraded and sorrow-stricken of his neighbours, far or near. Although rich blessings crowned his days, and sweet was the cup of life he quaffed, he felt most truly that no desert of his had earned them. Gifts of mercy he called them all; abounding gifts--too good, but as the tokens of Infinite Benevolence to the most unworthy.