thought he didn't want his own friends to know where he was. Dan might
be a rich man to-day, if he chose to look them up; but he'd scorch at a
slow fire before he'd touch a copper of it. Father never believed a word
about it, when we recited it again to him.

"So Faith 'a come into her fortune, has she?" said he. "Pretty child!
She 'a'n't had so much before sence she fell heir to old Miss Devereux's
best chany, her six silver spoons, and her surname."

So the days passed, and the greater part of every one Mr. Gabriel was
dabbling in the water somewhere. There wasn't a brook within ten miles
that he didn't empty of trout, for Dan knew the woods as well as the
shores, and he knew the clear nights when the insects can keep free from
the water so that next day the fish rise hungry to the surface; and so
sometimes in the brightest of May noons they'd bring home a string of
those beauties, speckled with little tongues of flame; and Mr. Gabriel
would have them cooked, and make us all taste them,--for we don't care
much for that sort, down here on the Flats; we should think we were
famished, if we had to eat fish. And then they'd lie in wait all day for
the darting pickerel in the little Stream of Shadows above; and when
it came June, up the river he went trolling for bass, and he used
a different sort of bait from the rest,--bass won't bite much at
clams,--and he hauled in great forty-pounders. And sometimes in the
afternoons he took out Faith and me,--for, as Faith would go, whether or
no, I always made it a point to put by everything and go too; and I used
to try and get some of the other girls in, but Mr. Gabriel never would
take them, though he was hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, and was
everybody's favorite, and it was known all round how he found out Faith,
and that alone made him so popular, that I do believe, if he'd only
taken out naturalization-papers, we'd have sent him to General Court.