The family consisted of two young girls well up in their teens; Tom, a lively boy of twelve, and Dora, a plump little miss of six; and coming after these, in her own estimation, was the mother, a model of neatness and good-nature, a fine dairy woman, whose interests were, of course, centred in her cows and poultry yard, and she was generally found somewhere near the vicinity of her particular treasures.

Then there was Phebe, the strong-armed.  A very important member of the family was she, as you would soon learn if you made any stay in the farmhouse.  She it was who solved problems by the aid of washboard and scrubbing-brush, and the tempting meals she sent out of the kitchen would have delighted the heart of an epicure.  But to see Phebe at her best, one should be at the farm during the busy haying season.  It was her pride and delight to be considered “as good as any man,” and she could “pitch a load” with a dexterity that even the two farm hands could not equal.  These latter were brothers, and lived in a snug cottage a few rods away, said cottage being kept, like everything else on the farm, as “neat as a new pin,” by Joe’s wife, a brisk little woman, whose head scarcely reached to her husband’s shoulder.

Another inmate of the farmhouse should have a paragraph all to herself, for “the grandmother” cannot be described in one brief line.  Although she had long since passed the allotted span of life, yet age had not dimmed the lustre of her keen grey eyes nor dulled her faculties; and though she could no longer take an active part in the management of the household, yet from her corner in the pleasant room a potent spell reached out and overshadowed the members of the household.  No crowned monarch on his throne ever ruled over such deferential and loyal subjects as those that here yielded to her benign sway.  Not that she required it of them—­it was graciously accorded her as to the patriarchs of old, and she seemed to belong to a holier age.  Her soft white hair fell over her brow, and was drawn back under a large white frilled cap that surrounded her head like a halo, and the placid countenance that beamed beneath it inspired a feeling of reverence.  She was called by all the household “the grandmother,” and was dearly loved by them all; but the filial love of her son was far above that usually accorded to aged mothers, and it was easy to see how it warmed her heart.

Such was the household into which our young travellers were ushered about five o’clock on a beautiful summer day.

Mr. McDonald had been watching for their appearance for some hours, and his hearty greetings were repeated by the rest of the family.  The farmer’s daughters, Maggie and Lizzie, received Gertrude with the cordiality of an old friend, and though at first they seemed a little shy with the strangers from “abroad” this soon wore away, and they found their visitors quite as amiable as if they had been born on the same soil as themselves.