and her promptness of decision in these matters,
gave her manner a kind of authority which no
one liked to disobey, especially as she had stalwart
neighbours within call to back her if her
assumed deafness in the first instance, and her
voice and gesture in the second, were not enough
to give the would-be guest his dismissal. Widow
Smith chose her customers merely by their
physical aspect; not one whit with regard to their
apparent worldly circumstances. Those who
had been staying at her house once always
came again, for she had the knack of making
every one beneath her roof comfortable and
at his ease. Her daughters, Prudence and
Hester, had somewhat of their mother's gifts,
but not in such perfection. They reasoned a
little upon a stranger's appearance, instead of
knowing at the first moment whether they liked
him or no; they noticed the indications of his
clothes, the quality and cut thereof, as telling
somewhat of his station in society; they were
more reserved, they hesitated more than their
mother; they had not her prompt authority, her
happy power. Their bread was not so light,
their cream went sometimes to sleep when it
should have been turning into butter, their
hams were not always "just like the hams of
the old country," as their mother's were
invariably pronounced to be; yet they were good,
orderly, kindly girls, and rose and greeted Lois
with a friendly shake of the hand, as their
mother, with her arm round the stranger's waist,
led her into the private room which she called
her parlour. The aspect of this room was
strange in the English girl's eyes. The logs of
which the house was built showed here and
there through the mud plaster, although
before both plaster and logs were hung the skins
of many curious animals,—skins presented to
the widow by many a trader of her acquaintance,
just as her sailor guests brought her another
description of gift—shells, strings of wampum-
beads, sea-birds' eggs, and presents from the old
country. The room was more like a small
museum of natural history of these days than
a parlour; and it had a strange, peculiar, but
not unpleasant smell about it, neutralised in
some degree by the smoke from the enormous
trunk or pinewood which smouldered on the
hearth. The instant their mother told them
that Captain Holdernesse was in the outer room,
the girls began putting away their spinning-
wheel, and knitting-needles, and preparing for a
meal of some kind; what meal, Lois, sitting
there and uncousciously watching, could hardly
tell. First, dough was set to rise for cakes
then came out ot a comer cupboard—a present
from England—an enormous square bottle of a
cordial called Golden Wasser; next, a mill for
grinding chocolate—a rare unusual treat
anywhere at that time; then a great Cheshire
cheese. Three venison steaks were cut ready for
broiling, fat cold pork sliced up and treacle
poured over it, a great pie something like a
mince-pie, but which the daughters spoke of
with honour as the " punken-pie," fresh and
salt-fish brandered, oysters cooked in various
ways. Lois wondered where would be the end of
the provisions for hospitably receiving the
strangers from the old country. At length
everything was placed on the table, the hot food
smoking; but all was cool, not to say cold,
before Elder Hawkins (an old neighbour of much
repute and standing, who had been invited in by
Widow Smith to near the news) had finished
his grace, into which was embodied thanksgivings
for the past and prayers for the future lives of
every individual present, adapted to their several
cases as far as the elder could guess 'at them
from appearances. This grace might not have
ended so soon as it did had it not been for the
somewhat impatient drumming of his knife-
handle on the table with which Captain
Holdernesse accompanied the latter half of the
elder's words.

When they first sat down to their meal, all
were too hungry for much talking; but as their
appetites diminished their curiosity increased,
and there was much to be told and heard on.
both sides. With all the English intelligence
Lois was, of course, well acquainted; but she
listened with natural attention to all that was
said about the new country, the new people
among whom she had come to live. Her father
had been a Jacobite, as the adherents of the
Stuarts were beginning at this time to be called.
His father, again, had been a follower of
Archbishop Laud; so Lois had hitherto heard little
of the conversation, and seen little of the ways
of the Puritans. Elder Hawkins was one of the
strictest of the strict, and evidently his presence
kept the two daughters of the house considerably
in awe. But the widow herself was a privileged
person; her known goodness of heart (the
effects of which had been experienced by many)
gave her the liberty of speech which was tacitly
denied to many, under penalty of being esteemed
ungodly if they infringed certain conventional
limits. And Captain Holdernesse and his mate
spoke out their minds, let who would be present.
So that on this first landing in New England, Lois
was, as it were, gently let down into the midst
of the Puritan peculiarities, and yet they were
sufficient to make her feel very lonely and strange.

The first subject of conversation was the
present state of the colony—Lois soon found out that
—although at the beginning she was not a little
perplexed by the frequent reference to names of
places which she naturally associated with the
old country. Widow Smith was speaking:
"In county of Essex the folk are ordered to
keep four scouts, or companies of minute-men;
six persons in each company; to be on the lookout
for the wild Indians, who are for ever
stirring about in the woods, stealthy brutes as
they are! I am sure I got such a fright
the first harvest-time after I came over to New
England, I go on dreaming, now near twenty
years after Lothrop's business, of painted Indians,
with their shaven scalps and their war-streaks,
lurking behind the trees, and coming nearer and
nearer with their noiseless steps."

"Yes," broke in one of her daughters, " and,
mother, don't you remember how Hannah Benson