liking.  So they grew up to be grave, taciturn men, still retaining the same strong resemblance of face and figure, though time had somewhat altered the features, by fixing a different expression on each, giving to John a fierce resolution, and to James a lurking distrustfulness of look.  These years made less change in Mrs. Blount than in her sons; she was the same active, black-eyed woman, only that her sternness and reserve seemed to increase with her age, and a few silver threads appeared in her raven hair.

I have said that it was three miles from the Blount place to the nearest house.  This was at the toll-gate, which was kept by a man named Curtis.  He was a person of progressive tastes, supposed to have aristocratic inclinations.  As he was a well-to-do man, these were evinced in a Brussels carpet and a piano-forte which figured in his small parlor, and by his sending his only child, a daughter, to a city boarding-school.  She returned, as might have been expected, with ideas and desires far beyond the hill-side cottage where she was condemned to vegetate.  Now she was very pretty, with dancing blue eyes and a profusion of golden curls; she had, too, a most winning manner, hard for any one to resist; and these personal attractions, added to style of dress that had never been seen or imagined among the simple country-folk, rendered her a most important person, so that no “tea-fight” or merry-making was complete without Nelly Curtis.

However, it might have been long enough before the recluse young Blounts would have encountered the gay little belle, had it not been that they were of necessity obliged to pass through the toll-gate, and sometimes forced to stop there.  From some of her friends Nelly heard what a secluded life the two brothers led, and how especially averse they seemed to female society, and, with the appetite for conquest of a true flirt, she at once determined on adding them to the list of her victims.  It was not long before she had an opportunity for beginning her wiles.

One fine spring morning, John Blount started on horseback to go to the village.  The sun shone very brightly, the hedge-rows blushed with early blossoms, and the birds sang a song of rejoicing.  It was one of those clear, soft days when one feels new life and vigor at the thought of the coming summer.  Arrived at the toll-gate, John was surprised at seeing no one there to open it; he waited a moment, somewhat impatiently, and then called out,—­

“Holloa!”

At this, as if startled at his voice, there appeared in the cottage door-way a slender, rosy-cheeked maiden, who looked blooming and graceful enough to be the incarnation of the fresh and beautiful May.

“Excuse me,” she said, with a little curtsy; “I did not see you come up.”

This, as Nelly informed the friend to whom she related the adventure, was a fib,—­for Mr. Curtis was away, and she had been watching all the morning, in hopes one of the Blounts would pass; but she considered it a justifiable stratagem, as likely to secure his attention.