"Well, you'll take the railroad down to Schaeffer's, and from there you start down the Crik either in a stage or a boat. But I wouldn't recommend the stage nohow. You don't look so very rugged, and if you wa'n't killed, you'd be scared to death. So you'll hev to look up a boat." "What sort of boat?" asked Miselle, faintly. "Oh, a flatboat. They come up loaded with ile, and going back they like fust rate to catch a passenger. But don't you give 'em too much. They'd cheat you out of your eye-teeth, but I'll bet you they found I was too many for 'em. Don't you give more than a dollar, nohow; and I made 'em take the two of us for a dollar 'n' 'alf." "How far is it from Schaeffer's to Tarr Farm? Perhaps I could walk," suggested Miselle, modestly distrusting her own power in dealing with a rapacious flatboatman. "Well, it's five mild, more or less. Think you could foot it that fur?" "Oh, yes, very easily. Is the road pretty good?" "My gracious goodness! Clementiny, she wants to know if the road down the Crik is 'pretty good'!" "Reckon you ha'n't travelled round much in these parts. Where d'y' b'long?" asked the ingenuous Clementina, after a prolonged stare at the benighted stranger. Having satisfied herself for the time being with human nature, Miselle returned to the window, and found the landscape mistier than ever. She was still considering her probable success in finding an oil-boat and an oil-man to take her down the Creek, and steadily turning her back upon the vision of the Eastern-bound Lightning Express, when a lady followed by a gentleman ran up the steps of the Boston House, and presently entered the dreary parlor, transforming it, as she did so, to a cheerful abiding-place, by the magic of youth, beauty, and grace. Miselle devoured her with her eyes, as did Crusoe the human footstep on his desert island. An answering glance, a suppressed smile on either side, and an understanding was established, an alliance completed, a tie more subtile than Freemasonry confessed. In ten minutes Miselle and her new friend had conquered the lawless stove, had seated themselves before it, and were confiding to each other the mischances that had left them stranded upon the shore of Corry,--Miselle for the night, Melusina until two o'clock in the morning. Tea-time surprised this interchange of ideas, and so sunny had Miselle's mood become that she was able to eat and drink, even though confronted by the baby and its youthful mother, whose knife impartially deposited in her own mouth and the infant's portions of beefsteak, potatoes, short-cake, toast, pie, and cake, varied with spoonfuls of hot tea, at which the wretched little victim blinked and choked, but still swallowed. After tea, the infant, excited by refreshment nearly to the point of convulsions, was restored to its grandmother, while the mother played upon a mournful instrument called a melodeon, and sang various popular songs in a powerful, but uncultivated voice.