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 ing the beads rapidly on the long horse-hairs.

"You seem to be well skilled in your work," remarked the little woman.

"Yes, I have done much of it,—too much. That is what ails my head sometimes, when I see things double, or see beads everywhere; so I can do but little of it now."

Robert Nesmith and Augustus Reid went out to the saw-mill, directly after breakfast. The husband and wife had not yet decided in what way they would tell Nattie that she was already among near relatives, and soon to meet her father. As she was still quite weak and feeble, they dreaded to give her too much of a shock.

The two men came in at noon. When Mrs. Nesmith carried Nattie's dinner to her room, the name on which she had been at work was finished, and lay on the spread before her.

"Ah," said the little woman, "you have been very expeditious. I see that your task is done.