say that there must be no more pulling down of the ends of the pasture fences.  The nails had easily let go their hold of the old boards, and a stone had served our heroine for a useful shipwright’s hammer, but the young cattle had strayed through these broken barriers and might have done great damage if they had been discovered a little later,—­having quickly hied themselves to a piece of carefully cultivated land.  The Jake and Martin families regarded Nan with a mixture of dread and affection.  She was bringing a new element into their prosaic lives, and her pranks afforded them a bit of news almost daily.  Her imagination was apt to busy itself in inventing tales of her unknown aunt, with which she entertained a grandchild of Martin Dyer, a little girl of nearly her own age.  It seemed possible to Nan that any day a carriage drawn by a pair of prancing black horses might be seen turning up the lane, and that a lovely lady might alight and claim her as her only niece.  Why this event had not already taken place the child never troubled herself to think, but ever since Marilla had spoken of this aunt’s existence, the dreams of her had been growing longer and more charming, until she seemed fit for a queen, and her unseen house a palace.  Nan’s playmate took pleasure in repeating these glowing accounts to her family, and many were the head-shakings and evil forebodings over the untruthfulness of the heroine of this story.  Little Susan Dyer’s only aunt, who was well known to her, lived as other people did in a comparatively plain and humble house, and it was not to be wondered at that she objected to hearing continually of an aunt of such splendid fashion.  And yet Nan tried over and over again to be in some degree worthy of the relationship.  She must not be too unfit to enter upon more brilliant surroundings whenever the time should come,—­she took care that her pet chickens and her one doll should have high-sounding names, such as would seem proper to the aunt, and, more than this, she took a careful survey of the house whenever she was coming home from school or from play, lest she might come upon her distinguished relative unawares.  She had asked her grandmother more than once to tell her about this mysterious kinswoman, but Mrs. Thacher proved strangely uncommunicative, fearing if she answered one easy question it might involve others that were more difficult.

The good woman grew more and more anxious to fulfil her duty to this troublesome young housemate; the child was strangely dear and companionable in spite of her frequent naughtiness.  It seemed, too, as if she could do whatever she undertook, and as if she had a power which made her able to use and unite the best traits of her ancestors, the strong capabilities which had been illy balanced or allowed to run to waste in others.  It might be said that the materials for a fine specimen of humanity accumulate through several generations, until a child appears who is the heir of all the family wit and attractiveness and common sense, just as one person may inherit the worldly wealth of his ancestry.