housekeeper. Do you really think you could be such a personage?"
"Oh, I want to be! that is, I'll try my best," said Nattie, gladly. "I can't do as well as a woman, but I will be learning every day, if you will only have patience. Mother was so very nice, always, and Biddy, too, that you will find a great difference, of course."
"I think I am not so particular, in many respects, as I was before my troubles," said Mr. Nesmith; "and if I can but have my daughter with me again, whom I had expected to see no more, I shall find abundant cause to be thankful and content."
After a week's tarrying with his son, Mr. Nesmith and Nattie set out for home. Augustus Reid was invited to bear them company, and make a visit to his mother's friends, who, it appeared evident, lived in the same village. But he excused himself, feeling too wild and untutored to go at once into the society of polished white
