"Oh, pshaw! pshaw!" interrupted Lisette. "I an't going to hear another word of this talk! What's the use? We shall do well enough. Everything will come out right,—you see if it don't, now. I was always lucky, and I always shall be."

The conversation was here interrupted by a loud whooping, and a clatter of horse's heels.

"What's that?" said Harry, starting to the window. "As I live, now, if there isn't that wretch of a Tomtit, going off with that horse! How came he here? He will ruin him! Stop there! hallo!" he exclaimed, running out of doors after Tomtit.

Tomtit, however, only gave a triumphant whoop, and disappeared among the pine-trees.

"Well, I should like to know what sent him here!" said Harry, walking up and down, much disturbed.

"Oh, he's only going round through the grove; he will be back again," said Lisette; "never fear. Isn't he a handsome little rogue?"

"Lisette, you never can see trouble anywhere!" said Harry, almost angrily.

"Ah! yes I do," said Lisette, "when you speak in that tone! Please don't, Harry! What should you want me to see trouble for?"

"I don't know, you little thing," said Harry, stroking her head fondly.

"Ah, there comes the little rascal, just as I knew he would!" said Lisette. "He only wanted to take a little race; he hasn't hurt the horse;" and, tripping lightly out, she caught the reins, just as Tomtit drove up to the gate; and it seemed but a moment before he was over in the garden, with his hands full of flowers.

"Stop, there, you young rascal, and tell me what sent you here!" said Harry, seizing him, and shaking him by the shoulder.

"Laws, Massa Harry, I wants to get peaches, like other folks," said the boy, peeping roguishly in at the window, at the tea-table.

"And he shall have a peach, too," said Lisette, "and some flowers, if he'll be a good boy, and not tread on my borders."

Tomtit seized greedily at the peach she gave him, and, sitting flat down where he stood, and throwing the flowers on the ground beside him, began eating it with an earnestness of devotion as if his whole being were concentrated in the act. The color was heightened in his brown cheek by the exercise, and, with his long, drooping curls and eyelashes, he looked a very pretty centre to the flower-piece which he had so promptly improvised.

"Ah, how pretty he is!" said Lisette, touching Harry's elbow. "I wish he was mine!"

"You'd have your hands full, if he was," said Harry eying the intruder discontentedly, while Lisette stood picking the hulls from a fine bunch of strawberries which she was ready to give him when he had finished the peach.

"Beauty makes fools of all you girls," said Harry, cynically.

"Is that the reason I married you?" said Lisette, archly. "Well, I know I could make him good, if I had the care of him. Nothing like coaxing; is there, Tom?"