22 AGNES.

overlooking the river. How many ships came up that river to
Agnes, and what fairy freight they held! But, alas! they were
only phantom ships, whose name was always “ Day Dream,”
and they vanished away with the practical sense of hunger
which would overtake Agnes’s musings, and send her back to
the house to dinner or supper, often too scanty a meal for a
healthy appetite. But Agnes’s chief employment was digging;
that might seem very queer unless one knew her reason.
During the war the family valuables, including quite a sum
in gold coin, had been buried hastily by one of the servants,
a trustworthy man, who was left by the family to watch the
place, as they hurriedly made their escape, fearing danger to
the baby Agnes and her mother. The old man, Jonas, was
found dead a few days later, shot through the heart; whether
accidentally or not was never found out, but the secret of
the hiding-place died with him, and no one was ever able to
discover it. :
“Mamma,” Agnes said, as she ran in one day, “I am
afraid my shoes will not stand another cobbling, and I have
tried to run barefoot all I could this summer.” .
_ <A distressed look passed over her mother’s face as she.
‘said,— ah Ge
“TJ cannot bear to have you run barefoot, daughter. Take »
your shoes to ’Rius, and see what he can do with them.”
_Uncle Darius was Jack-of-all-trades, and to so many dif- |
ferent mendings he turned his hand that it is almost a wonder