of storms and sunshine: it has pleased the Lord to lop off all our branches, to cut down the little saplings that grew up at our feet, and leave us two lonely and bare trunks, to feel, and resist the winds of heaven as we may: two old evergreens," he continued, with a melancholy smile, "that flourish when every thing has faded about them. Yes, fifty years I have seen the sun come over that mountain every morning; and there is not a tree in all these thick woods but it seems like an old friend to me. Here my sons and daughters have been born to me, and here I have buried them, all but poor Jem, who you know was lost at sea. They died when they were but little children, and nobody remembers them but us; but they are as fresh in our minds as if it was but yesterday they were playing about us, with their laughing eyes and rosy cheeks. This has not much to do with my law-suit," continued John, after a pause, and clearing his voice, "only that I shall want some excuse for loving the old rookery so well before I get through with my story. I hired this bit of land of a man that's been dead twenty years, and it has changed hands many a time since, but I have always been able to satisfy for the rent; it was but a trifle, for no one but I would fancy the place. Lately it's come into the hands of the two young Woodhulls, by the death of the Deacon their father. They are two hard-favoured, hard-hearted, wild young chaps, Miss Jane, that think all the world was made for them, and their pleasure. If my memory serves me, it
