and coated in golden sweets, and, after a wordy skirmish with the cook, presented to Miss Emma a great cake of brown and fragrant honey from a nest she had discovered and neglected in better seasons, and said nothing about her half-dozen swollen and smarting stings. Mas'r Rob having shouldered his gun and taken himself off, and Mas'r Andersen having followed his example, but not his footsteps, long ago, there was nobody to fill the deficiencies of the larder with game; and thus Flor, with her traps and nets and devices, making her value felt every day, became, for Miss Emma's sake, a petted person, was put on more generous terms with those above her, and allowed a freedom of action that no other servant on the place dreamed of desiring. Such consideration was very acceptable to the girl, who was well content to go fasting herself a whole day, provided Miss Emma condescended to her offerings, and, in turn, vouchsafed her her friendship. She had no such daring aspirations towards the beautiful Miss Agatha, young Mas'r Andersen's wife, and admired her at an awful distance, never venturing to offer her a bit of broiled lark, or set before her a dish of crabs,--beaming back with a grin from ear to ear, if Miss Agatha so much as smiled on her, breaking into the wildest of dances and shuffling out the shrillest of tunes after every such incident. Moreover, Miss Agatha was hedged about with a dignity of grief, and the indistinct pity given her made her safe from other intrusion; for Mas'r Andersen, in bringing home a Northern wife, had brought home Northern principles, and, in his sudden escape forced to leave her in the only home she had, was away fighting Northern battles. This was a dreadful thing, and Mas'r Andersen was a traitor to somebody,--so much Flor knew,--it might be the Government, it might be the South, it might be Miss Agatha; her ideas were nebulous. Whatever it was, Mas'r Rob and his gun were on the other side, and woe be to Mas'r Andersen when they met! Mas'r Rob and his friends were beating back the men that meant to take away Flor and all her kind to freeze and starve; 'twas very good of him, Flor thought, and there ceased consideration. Meanwhile, wherever Mas'r Andersen might be, and whether he were so much as alive or not, Miss Agatha was not the one that knew; and Flor adapted many a rigadoon to her conjectured feelings, now swaying and bending with sorrow and longing, head fallen, arms outstretched, now hands clasped on bosom, exultant in welcome and possession. The importance to which Flor gradually rose by no means led her to the exhibition of any greater decorum; on the contrary, it seemed to impart to her the secret of perpetual motion; and, aware of her impunity, she danced with fresher vigor in the very teeth of her censurers and their reproaches.