Miselle adopted the suggestion. The hour was one P. M., and the general repast was concluded; but a special table was soon prepared, whereat she and a gentleman of imposing appearance, called Viator Ignotus, were soon seated, before a dinner, of which the intention was excellent, but the execution as fatal as most executions. Viator ate in silence, occasionally startling his companion by wild plunges across the table, knife in hand. At first she was inclined to believe him a dangerous madman; but finding that the various dishes, and not herself, were the objects of attack, she refrained from flight, and considerately pushed everything within convenient stabbing distance of the blade, which unweariedly continued to wave in glittering curves from end to end of the table long after she had finished. The banquet over, Miselle found the drawing-room, and in company with a woman, a girl, a baby, and a lawless stove, devoted herself to the study of Corry as seen through a window streaming with rain. Tired at last of this exhilarating pursuit, she engaged in single combat with the stove, and, being signally beaten, resolved to try a course of human nature as developed in her companions. She soon learned that the girl was in reality a matron of seventeen, and the actual proprietor of the baby, whom, nevertheless, she appeared to regard as a mysterious phenomenon attached to the elder woman, whom she addressed as "Mam." In this view the grandmother seemed to coincide, and remarked, naively,-- "Why, lor, Ma'am, she and her husband a'n't nothing but two babies theirselves. She ha'n't never been away from her folks, nor he from hisn, till t'other day he got bit with the ile-fever, and nothing would do but to tote down here to the Crik and make his fortin. They was chirk enough when they started; but about a week ago he come home, and I tell you he sung a little smaller than when he was there last. He was clean discouraged; there wa'n't no ile to be had, 'thout you'd got money enough to live on, to start with; and victuals and everything else was so awful dear, a poor man would get run out 'fore he'd realized the fust thing; wust of all was, Clementiny was so homesick she couldn't neither sleep nor eat; and the amount was, he'd stop 'long with father in the shop, and I should go and fetch home the two babies. So here I be, and a time I've had gittin' 'em along, I tell _you_." "It's hard travelling down Oil Creek, then?" asked Miselle, with a personal interest in the question. "Hard! Reckon you'll say that, arter you've tried it. How fur be you going?" "To Tarr Farm." "Lor, yes. Well now how d'y' allow to git there?" "I am hoping to meet a friend here who will know all about the way; but if he fails me, I shall ask the people at the railway station." "No need to go so fur. I kin tell ye the hull story, for it's from Tarr Farm I fetched the gal and young 'un this very morning." "Indeed? What is the best route, then?"