ties had sent him riding down to Marblehead where the fortification, since named and to-day still known as Fort Sewall, was then just being built (at an expense of almost seven hundred pounds) for the defence of the harbour against French cruisers. On the way to the fort he stopped for a draught of cooling ale at the Inn where Agnes did odd jobs for a few shillings a month.

And lo! scrubbing the tavern floor there knelt before him a beautiful child-girl of sixteen, with black curling hair, shy dark eyes and a voice that proved to be of exquisite sweetness, when the maiden, glancing up, gave her good-day to the gallant's greeting. girl's feet were bare, and this so moved Frankland's compassion that he gently gave her a piece of gold with which to buy shoes and stockings. Then he rode thoughtfully away to conduct his business at the fort.

The

But he did not by any means forget that charming child just budding into winsome womanhood whom he had seen performing with patience and grace the duties that fell to her lot as the poor daughter of some honest hard-working fisher-folk of the town. When he happened to be again in Marblehead on business he inquired at once for her, and then, see

ing her feet still without shoes and stockings, asked a bit teasingly what she had done with the money he gave her. Quite frankly she replied, blushing the while, that the shoes and stockings were bought but that she kept them to wear to meeting.

This reply and the sight for the second time of the girl engaged in heavy work for which her slender figure and delicate face showed her to be wholly unfitted put it into Frankland's head to take her away to Boston and educate her for less menial employment. The consent of the girl's parents to this proposal appears to have been given with rather surprising readiness; but it is more than likely that Agnes took the matter into her own hands, as many a girl since has done, and that to permit her to go was regarded as the wiser course. Women matured early in those days, and a strong reciprocal emotion, innocent though it undoubtedly was in its nature, must have been aroused in this girl's heart by the ardent admiration of the handsome gentleman from Boston. Moreover the Reverend Dr. Edward Holyoke, who had been the family pastor at Marblehead, was now president of Harvard College, and it was probably expected that he