ILLUSTRATIONS.

	PAGE
“I—I—I LOOK A AWFUL FOOL—DON’T I?”	[Frontispiece]
“I CAN’T COME TO DINNER”	[11]
“AW-W-W POPO!”	[43]
ON THE TOP OF PETER’S MOUNTAIN	[65]
“I GWINE TAKE DAT DAR OUTLANDISH THING OFFEN YO’, HONEY”	[139]
“HE MUST ’A’ HAD A MIGHTY LEETLE CROP”	[161]

VIRGINIA OF VIRGINIA.

I.

“It’s a girl,” said Roden, laying a wager with himself. “No; it’s a boy. Hanged if it isn’t a girl!” He took his short brier-wood pipe from his mouth, knocked out its contents against the side of the wagon, and pocketed it.

The time of the year was January, the scene a country road in Virginia, and it was drizzling, a thick Scotch drizzle, abetted by a lusty east wind. Even the branches of the straggling locust-trees that lined the red road seemed clogged with it. It hung in folds upon the sides of the mountains, and was blown in masses between the clefts of the rolling meadows.