But she and her expostulation got no sort of attention.  Miss Lizzie walked up the hill again to await the unpacking of the box.  Miss Cadwallader straightened herself against a post, while Mr. Cowslip and Winthrop went to the store for a hammer.

“She’s got spunk in her, ha’n’t she, that little one?” said the miller.  “She’s a likely lookin’ little gal, too.  But I never seen any one so fierce arter books, yet.”

Tools were soon found, in Mr. Cowslip’s store, but the box was strongly put together and the opening of it was not a very speedy business.  The little proprietor looked on patiently.  When it was open, Miss Lizzie was not very easy to suit.  With great coolness she stood and piled up book after book on the uncovered portion of the box, till she had got at those she wanted.  She pleased herself with two or three, and then the others were carefully put back again; and she stood to watch the fastening up of the box as it was before.

“It will be safe here?” she said to the miller.

“Safe enough!” he answered.  “There’s nobody here ’ll want to pry open these here books, agin this night.”

“And will the other things be safe?” said Miss Cadwallader, who had come up the hill again in despair.  The miller glanced at her.

“Safe as your hair in curl-papers.  You can be comfortable.  Now then —­”

The sun was not far from the mountain tops, when at last Miss Lizzie stood again at the water’s edge with her volumes.  Miss Cadwallader grumbled a little, but it met the utmost carelessness.  The tide was very low; but by the help of Winthrop in the boat and Mr. Cowslip on the muddy steps, the young ladies were safely passed down and seated in the stern-sheets, not without two or three little screams on the part of Miss Cadwallader.  The other, quite silent, looked a little strangely at the water coming within three or four inches of her dress, an expression of grave timidity becoming her dark eye much better than the look it had worn a few minutes before.  As the boat lurched a little on pushing off, the colour started to her cheeks, and she asked “if there was any danger?”

“Not the least,” Winthrop said.

Elizabeth gave another look at the very self-possessed calm face of her boatman, and then settled herself in her place with the unmistakable air of a mind at ease.

The boat had rounded the corner of the wharf and fell into its upward track, owing all its speed now to the rower’s good arm; for a very strong down tide was running against them.  They crept up, close under the shore, the oars almost touching the rocks; but always, as if a spirit of divination were in her, the little boat turned its head from the threatened danger, edged in and out of the mimic bays and hollows in the shores, and kept its steady onward way.  The scene was a fairy-land scene now.  Earth, water, and air, were sparkling with freshness and light.  The sunlight lay joyously in the nest of