wind swept now and shook, and where the mists congregated in the evenings or the frosts convened. The Jessup children were shrill at play. The baby had got on its feet, and was walking into everything,—unwary pans and kettles and tubs of water. Tige’s overbearing disposition was very manifest in his capacity as fireside companion. And when the chimney smoked, and L’onidas preferred his complaints at Alethea’s side as she sat and carded wool, and the cub leaned his weight against her as he contemplated the fire with his head upon her knee, and her step-mother scolded, and Jacob Jessup fumed and contradicted, and the experimental baby brought down the churn with a crash, while the cat lapped amidst the waste, Mrs. Jessup would shift her snuff-brush to the other corner of her pretty mouth, and demand, “Now ain’t Lethe a plumb fool ter live hyar along o’ sech cavortin’ ways up on the side o’ a mounting, a-waitin’ fur a pore wuthless scamp like Mink Lorey, when she could hev a house ter herself in Piomingo Cove, with no hendrance but Ben Doaks, a quiet respectable boy, ez I don’t look down on ’kase he ain’t got religion! I know some folks ez religion itself can’t holp.” Sometimes, however,—it was at long intervals,—even Mrs. Jessup would be summoned to rouse herself from the heavy sluggishness that made all exertion, beyond the necessary routine, positive pain. The code of etiquette that prevails in the mountains, simple as it is, has yet its rigorous requirements; and when the death of a kinsman in Eskaqua Cove presently occurred, the graceless creature deplored it less than the supervening necessity of attending the obsequies. There was no snow, nor ice, nor rain, to urge as an excuse. The weather was singularly fine and dry. It was easier getting down the mountain now than in the summer. And so she was constrained to go.