“That is the way they do it,” said Beatrice, smiling, “and it pays better, particularly on market days, than to put it in all the city papers.  It is the quickest way to make a loss known, or to advertise a sale, for everybody listens to old Hatch, or Mr. Hatch, I should say.  It is very old-fashioned to have a town-crier, I suppose, but we should miss him very much, though I daresay the office will die with the present crier.”

“I think it is an old English custom,” said Lancy.  “I have read of criers going through the streets to announce great events, such as battles and other public matters, but I thought they were out of date long ago.”

The events of the morning were duly discussed with Mrs. Fremont when they arrived at the house, and she assured them that no thought of inconvenience need cause them to shrink from accepting Mr. McDonald’s invitation.  Their visit would bring pleasure to all the members of the family.

“You will not find the family rude and rough, as some country people are.  The girls are bright and intelligent, though full of fun and frolic,” she added.  “You will be sure to enjoy yourselves, and should there come a rainy day you will find plenty to amuse you in their quaint though comfortable farmhouse.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

The same comfortable carriage that carried them to Montague Bridge was now travelling in an opposite direction, and the young strangers viewed with pleasure the luxuriant fields that surrounded the many farmhouses, and which promise such abundant harvest to their owners.  The drive proved a very delightful one indeed.  In consequence of the many stoppings they made to regale themselves with the sweet wild berries that grew in abundance by the roadside, the afternoon was drawing to a close when the little party reached the McDonald farmhouse.

The hardy pioneer who had first settled on the land that was owned and tilled by his descendants, must have selected the site on which he built his first log-house with an eye to the picturesque and beautiful, for no other spot for miles around had such a far reaching and delightful prospect.  As time went by, and the land gave forth its increase, the log-house was supplemented by a more pretentious structure, that was “built on,” the original apartments serving for kitchens, outhouses and other necessary buildings; and as this process of erection went on at later periods, the farmhouse was large and many sided, and possessed many conveniences that farmers are apt to consider unnecessary.  But the honest pride that the present owner had in the well-tilled acres extended to the buildings upon it, and neatness and thrift were everywhere present.  No hingeless gates propped with sticks met the eye; no broken-down doors were to be seen on his barns; a master hand ruled the land, and his rule brought prosperity and happiness.

The inmates of the farmhouse were such as you would expect to find amidst such surroundings—­active and intelligent, and not wholly given up to the pursuit of the things which perish with the using, for the young people, at least, found time for intellectual pleasures that would have been considered in some farmhouses a wilful waste of time and means.