"Cannon, will you take me for it?"

"I'll take your judgment-bond or the cash, Captain Van Dorn, nothing less."

"Put back her stuff," the captain said, slightly pressing Levin's hand, as if to say, "This is for you""put back her stuff and I'll settle it with Isaac Cannon."

"God bless you!" cried the woman, taking her babe from the cradle and hushing its hunger at her breast; "they call you a wicked man, but blessings on you for all the good you do!"

"Chito! chito!" smiled Van Dorn. "I did it for this foolish boy; I pity none."

Hulda had resorted to the strand, or river street of Cannon's Ferry, where there were two storehouses, and she had borrowed quill and ink, and written a letter addressed to "Mrs. Ellenora Dennis, Princess Anne, Somerset County, Maryland," saying:

"Madam, Levin, your son, is near this place against his will, among dangerous men and in great temptation, but he has found a friend. In one week this friend will try to write again, and, if not heard from, seek Levin Dennis at Johnson's Cross-roads."

This letter, written with all her unproficient speed, had just been folded, wafered, and endorsed, and she had put down one of the shillings of 1815 to pay the postage, when a shadow fell upon the store counter, and the letter was withdrawn from her hand; Van Dorn stood by her side.

"Chis! chito! Es posible? A spy, perhaps. Now you will love Van Dorn, or Grandma Cannon shall hear your letter read!"

"Give it to me, Captain," Hulda pleaded; "she will kill me if she reads it."

"If it were sent, pomarosa, we all might die. No, you are too dangerous."

He looked, without his blush, at the shilling she was putting back in her bosom, and his eye was cold and fierce. Hulda's heart sank down.

"Brother Isaac," cried Jacob Cannon, to a man of fine, lean height, who was at the desk - a man a little shorter than Jacob, and not so much of a king in appearance but with the same whitish eyes dancing around the bridge of his nose, and a more covert and thoughtful brow"Brother Isaac, Captain Van Dorn is chicken-hearted, and wants to settle the debt of the Widow O'Day, otherwise Daw."

"By cash or judgment-note, captain?"

"Cash," answered Van Dorn, modestly; "take it out of this double-eagle, with Madam Cannon's rent for your farm."

"There's a tree - a bee-tree, Brother Jacob, I think you said - cut down from Mrs. Cannon's field?"

"Yes, actionable under statute made and provided, wilfully to spoil or destroy any timber or other trees, roots, shrubs, or plants; value of said bee-tree three dollars; levari facias! The quotient is unsatisfactory to Isaac and Jacob Cannon."

The eyes of the elder and smaller brother endeavored to have an introduction to each other through the bridge of his nose.

"Oh, Brother Jacob," he chuckled, "what an executive help you air! Captain, isn't he a perfect Marius?"

"Madam Cannon," observed the captain, "throws up the farm with this payment, gentlemen. She has already moved her effects across the line to son-in-law Johnson's. The bee-tree I know nothing about."