But the next house looked too unpromising.

“There is no milk there,” said I, “unless they keep a goat.”

“But could we not,” said my facetious companion, “go it on that?”

A couple of miles beyond I stopped at a house that enjoyed the distinction of being clapboarded, and had the good fortune to find both the milk and the young lady.  A mother and her daughter were again the only occupants save a babe in the cradle, which the young woman quickly took occasion to disclaim.

“It has not opened its dear eyes before since its mother left.  Come to aunty,” and she put out her hands.

The daughter filled my pail and the mother replenished our stock of bread.  They asked me to sit and cool myself, and seemed glad of a stranger to talk with.  They had come from an adjoining county five years before, and had carved their little clearing out of the solid woods.

“The men folks,” the mother said, “came on ahead and built the house right among the big trees,” pointing to the stumps near the door.

One no sooner sets out with his pack upon his back to tramp through the land than all objects and persons by the way have a new and curious interest to him.  The tone of his entire being is not a little elevated, and all his perceptions and susceptibilities quickened.  I feel that some such statement is necessary to justify the interest that I felt in this backwoods maiden.  A slightly pale face it was, strong and well arched, with a tender, wistful expression not easy to forget.

I had surely seen that face many times before in towns and cities, and in other lands, but I hardly expected to meet it here amid the stumps.  What were the agencies that had given it its fine lines and its gracious intelligence amid these simple, primitive scenes?  What did my heroine read, or think? or what were her unfulfilled destinies?  She wore a sprig of prince’s pine in her hair, which gave a touch peculiarly welcome.

“Pretty lonely,” she said, in answer to my inquiry; “only an occasional fisherman in summer, and in winter—­nobody at all.”

And the little new schoolhouse in the woods farther on, with its half-dozen scholars and the girlish face of the teacher seen through the open door,—­nothing less than the exhilaration of a journey on foot could have made it seem the interesting object it was.  Two of the little girls had been to the spring after a pail of water, and came struggling out of the woods into the road with it as we passed.  They set down their pail and regarded us with a half-curious, half-alarmed look.

“What is your teacher’s name?” asked one of us.

“Miss Lucinde Josephine—­” began the red-haired one, then hesitated, bewildered, when the bright, dark-eyed one cut her short with “Miss Simms,” and taking hold of the pail said, “Come on.”

“Are there any scholars from above here?” I inquired.

“Yes, Bobbie and Matie,” and they hastened toward the door.