—­Monckton Milnes.

Meanwhile on that fresh, dewy, moonlight summer evening, along the narrow path leading through the wood behind the hut, Ishmael limped—­the happiest little fellow, despite his wounds and bruises, that ever lived.  He was so happy that he half suspected his delight to be all unreal, and feared to wake up presently and find it was but a dream, and see the little black-eyed girl, the ride in the carriage, and, above all, the new “Illustrated History of the United States” vanish into the land of shades.

In this dazed frame of mind he reached the hut and opened the door.

The room was lighted only by the blazing logs of a wood fire, which the freshness of the late August evening on the hills made not quite unwelcome.

The room was in no respect changed in the last twelve years.  The well-cared-for though humble furniture was still in its old position.

Hannah, as of old, was seated at her loom, driving the shuttle back and forth with a deafening clatter.  Hannah’s face was a little more sallow and wrinkled, and her hair a little more freely streaked with gray than of yore:  that was all the change visible in her personal appearance.  But long continued solitude had rendered her as taciturn and unobservant as if she had been born deaf and blind.

She had not seen Reuben Gray since that Sunday when Ishmael was christened and Reuben insisted on bringing the child home, and when, in the bitterness of her woe and her shame, she had slammed the door in his face.  Gray had left the neighborhood, and it was reported that he had been promoted to the management of a rich farm in the forest of Prince George’s.

“There is your supper on the hearth, child,” she said, without ceasing her work or turning her head as Ishmael entered.

Hannah was a good aunt; but she was not his mother; if she had been, she would at least have turned around to look at the boy, and then she would have seen he was hurt, and would have asked an explanation.  As it was she saw nothing.

And Ishmael was very glad of it.  He did not wish to be pitied or praised; he wished to be left to himself and his own devices, for this evening at least, when he had such a distinguished guest as his grand new book to entertain!

Ishmael took up his bowl of mush and milk, sat down, and with a large spoon shoveled his food down his throat with more dispatch than delicacy—­just as he would have shoveled coal into a cellar.  The sharp cries of a hungry stomach must be appeased, he knew; but with as little loss of time as possible, particularly when there was a hungry brain waiting to set to work upon a rich feast already prepared for it!

So in three minutes he put away his bowl and spoon, drew his three-legged stool to the corner of the fireplace, where he could see to read, seated himself, opened his packet, and displayed his treasure.  It was a large, thick, octavo volume, bound in stout leather, and filled with portraits and pictured battle scenes.  And on the fly-leaf was written: