His former castle-building, however, served to enliven the way with merriment, as foot and eye travelled into the future, and setting the past down as so much paid for experience, he consoled himself with the thought of his youth and health, snapped his fingers at care, and held himself in an easy state of mind to receive whatever fate might send him. At the close of the second day of his journey he halted on the edge of a prairie at a small log house. A tidy woman was bustling about in the interior, and two children, whose little faces were yellow as saffron, sat listlessly upon the door sill, playing with bits of broken delf. Their narrow habitation presented little of comfort to cheer the inmates or welcome the traveller. He inquired if he could lodge there, and the woman answered that such as she had to offer, he was welcome to, but being a lonely widow, and far from where any thing comfortable could be obtained, she had but poor accommodations to offer. Our hero was easily pleased, and so signified to her. Depositing his bundle within, he took the axe from her hands, with which she was about to chop some wood, and throwing off his coat, he prepared the fuel to cook their evening repast, then seating himself upon a hickory bottomed chair, he took the widow's sickly little daughter upon his knee, and coaxed a smile into her wan countenance. The mother watched the gambols of her child with the merry stranger, and a tear of pleasure sparkled in her eye, while the feeling sent a pleasing expression over her sad countenance; she spoke to him, too, in a tone of kindness different from her first words, because there was something friendly about his manner, and his lighthearted gayety was cheering to her sorrow.