Two years ago their picturesque log-cabin stood almost in a wilderness, with the farm-house of James Tarr its only neighbor. Now the derricks are crowding up the hill toward it, until only a narrow belt of woodland protects it from invasion. In front, a small flower-garden still showed some autumn blooms at the time of Miselle's visit, and was the only attempt at floriculture seen by her on Oil Creek. With traditional Scotch hospitality, the mistress of the house, seconded by Maggie and Belle, the elder daughters, insisted that the proposed call should include dinner; and Miselle, nothing loath, was glad that her friends allowed themselves to be prevailed upon to stay. "It's no that we hae onything fit to gie ye, but ye maun just tak' the wull for the deed," said the good mother, as she bustled about, and set before her guests a plain and plentiful meal, where all was good enough, and the fresh bread and newly churned butter something more. "It's Maggie's baith baker and dairy-woman," said the well-pleased dame, in answer to a compliment upon these viands. "And it's she'll be gay and proud to gie ye all her ways about it, gif ye'll ask her." So Maggie, being questioned, described the process of making "salt-rising" bread, and to the recipe added a friendly caution, that, if allowed to ferment too long, the dough would become "as sad and dour as a stane, and though you br'ak your heart over it, wad ne'er be itsel' again." From a regard either to etiquette or convenience, only the heads of the family, and Jamie, the eldest son, a fine young giant, of one-and-twenty, sat down with the guests: the girls and younger children waiting upon table, and sitting down afterward with another visitor, an intelligent negro farmer, one of the most pleasing persons Miselle encountered on her travels. Dinner over, it was proposed that Maggie and Belle should accompany Mr. and Mrs. Williams and Miselle on a visit to some coal-mines about a mile farther back in the forest, and, with the addition of a young man named John, who chanced in on a Sunday-evening call to one of the young ladies, the party set forth. The day was the sweetest of the Indian summer, and the walk through woods of chestnut and hemlock was as charming as possible, and none the less so for the rustic coquetries of pretty Belle Miller, whose golden hair was the precise shade of a lock once shown to Miselle as a veritable relic of Prince Charlie.