the parent tree of the French knight Amadis had occupied Briar Farm in unbroken succession, and through three centuries the property had been kept intact, none of its possessions being dispersed and none of its land being sold. The house was practically in the same sound condition as when the Sieur Amadis fitted and furnished it for his own occupation,--there was the same pewter, the same solid furniture, the same fine tapestry, preserved by the careful mending of many hundreds of needles worked by hands long ago mingled with the dust of the grave, and, strange as it may seem to those who are only acquainted with the flimsy manufactures of to-day, the same stout hand-wrought linen, which, mended and replenished each year, lasted so long because never washed by modern methods, but always by hand in clear cold running water. There were presses full of this linen, deliriously scented with lavender, and there were also the spinning-wheels that had spun the flax and the hand-looms on which the threads had been woven. These were witnesses to the days when women, instead of gadding abroad, were happy to be at home--when the winter evenings seemed short and bright because as they sat spinning by the blazing log fire they were cheerful in their occupation, singing songs and telling stories and having so much to do that there was no time to indulge in the morbid analysis of life and the things of life which in our present shiftless day perplex and confuse idle and unhealthy brains. And now after more than three centuries, the direct male line of Amadis de Jocelin had culminated in Hugo, commonly called Farmer Jocelyn, who, on account of some secret love disappointment, the details of which he had never told to anyone, had remained unmarried. Till the appearance on the scene of the child, Innocent, who was by the village folk accepted and believed to be the illegitimate offspring of this ill-starred love, it was tacitly understood that Robin Clifford, his nephew, and the only son of his twin sister, would be the heir to Briar Farm; but when it was seen how much the old man seemed to cling to Innocent, and to rely upon her ever tender care of him, the question arose as to whether there might not be an heiress after all, instead of an heir. And the rustic wiseacres gossiped, as is their wont, watching with no small degree of interest the turn of events which had lately taken place in the frank and open admiration and affection displayed by Robin for his illegitimate cousin, as it was thought she was, and as Farmer Jocelyn had tacitly allowed it to be understood. If the two young people married, everybody agreed it would be the right thing, and the best possible outlook for the continued prosperity of Briar Farm. For after all, it was the farm that had to be chiefly considered, so they opined,--the farm was an historic and valuable property as well as an excellent paying concern. The great point to be attained was that it