Here, again, Uncle Juvinell paused in his story, and looked beamingly around on his little auditors. They were all sitting with their eyes bent earnestly on the burning logs, thinking deeply, no doubt, and looking as sober as tombstones in the light of a spring morning.

All on a sudden, Willie leaped from his chair, and gave a shrill Indian war-whoop, that threw the whole bevy into a terrible panic; making some of the smaller fry scream outright, and even Uncle Juvinell to blink a little. "There," said the youngster, "is something to ring in your ears for weeks hereafter, and never to be forgotten even to your dying day. I heard it the other night at the Indian circus, and have been practising it myself ever since. I fancy it must be a pretty fair sample of the genuine thing, or it wouldn't have scared you all up as it did." Whereupon Uncle Juvinell, frowning over his spectacles with his brows, and laughing behind them with his eyes, bade the young blood to pack himself into his chair again, and be civil; at the same time threatening to put him on a water-gruel diet, to bring his surplus spirits within reasonable bounds. Then all the little folks laughed, not so much at what their uncle had said, as to make believe they had not been frightened in the least; in which Willie, the cunning rogue, joined, that, under cover of the general merriment, he might snicker a little to himself at his own smartness.

"And now, my dear children," continued the good man, "hand me the notes you have written down, that I may see what it is you would have me explain."

"In five minutes' time after you began," said rattle-brained Willie, "I became so much interested in the story, that I quite forgot all about the notes, till it was too late to begin; but I was thinking all along, that I should like to understand more clearly the difference between a province and a colony, and"—

"Indeed, uncle," broke in Dannie, "you made every thing so clear and plain as you went along, that I, for one, didn't feel the need of writing down a single note."

"Then, Dannie," said his uncle, "that being the case, you can perhaps enlighten your cousin Willie as to the difference between a colony and a province."

Had his uncle called upon him to give the difference between Gog and Magog, Daniel would have made the venture. So he promptly answered,—

"A province is a country, and a colony is the people of it."

Uncle Juvinell would have laughed outright at this answer; but he knew it would mortify the young historian: so he only smiled, and said,—

"That will do pretty well, Dannie, as far as it goes; but it does not cover more than an acre of the ground. Now, a colony, you must know, Willie, is a settlement made by a country—called, in such cases, the mother-country—in some foreign region at a distance from it, but belonging to it; as, for example, the English colonies in America, which are separated from the mother-country, England, by the great Atlantic Ocean. A province, on the other hand, is a similar extent of foreign territory, belonging to a nation or a kingdom, either by conquest or purchase or settlement; and it may also be a division or district of the kingdom or nation itself. Thus, you see, a foreign region, settled and owned by the mother-country, may, with nearly equal propriety, be called either a colony or a province; while one that belongs to a nation or a kingdom by conquest or purchase is a province, and nothing else. Thus, for example, Canada is a province of Great Britain, won from the French by conquest, as you will learn to-morrow evening. From this you may see, that although a province may, yet a colony can no more exist within the boundaries of a mother-country, than can a man live at home and abroad at one and the same time."

The other children were then called on to produce their notes. Laura said, that, after she had written two or three, she found she was losing more than she was gaining; for, when she stopped to take down any item she wished to remember, she did not hear what came right after. Ellen chimed in with the same; and Ned said he was not yet out of his pot-hooks, and couldn't write; but that he was thinking all the time of getting Willie or Dannie to tell him all about it after they went to bed. So, what with this excuse, and that, and the other, not a single note was forthcoming, except a few that Master Charlie, the knowing young gentleman, had written on a very large slate, in letters quite of his own inventing, which he now laid before his uncle. To set off his penmanship to the best advantage, and couple the ornamental with the useful, he had drawn just above it a picture of Gen. Braddock, mounted on his dashing white charger, and waving aloft a sword of monstrous length. One unacquainted with the subject, however, would sooner have taken it for a big baboon, geared up in a cocked hat and high military boots, with a mowing-scythe in his hand, and astraddle of a rearing donkey heavily coated with feathers instead of hair. The old gentleman's spectacles seemed to twinkle as he ran his eye over the slate; and after making out two or three rather savage-looking s's, as many long-legged p's, a squat h or two, a big bottle-bellied b, three or four gigantic l's, a broken-backed k or two, a high-shouldered w, a heavy-bottomed d, and a long slim-tailed y, it struck him, at length, that speech-belt, Long Knife, knapsack, Silver Heels, wigwam, and powder-monkey, were the items concerning which Master Charlie desired further enlightenment.

"For information touching these matters, my dear Charles," then said Uncle Juvinell, "I will pass you over to Willie and Dannie, who, I dare say, are quite as well posted up in matters of this kind, as your old uncle; for, if I mistake not, they have just been reading Catlin's book on the Indians, and Gulliver's Travels in Brobdignag."

"How is it," inquired Ellen, "that Washington, being the good man that he was, could have taken part in that wicked war between the French and English about a country that didn't belong to either of them, but to the poor Indians?"

Now, although Uncle Juvinell was satisfied in his own mind that Washington's conduct in this matter was just what it should have been, yet, for all that, he was a little puzzled how to answer this question in a way that the little folks would rightly understand.

"This very thing, my dear niece," replied he after a moment's pause, "grieved and troubled his mind a great deal, as you may well believe: but he knew, that, if the English did not get possession of this land, the French would; and this, by increasing the strength of the enemy, would by and by endanger the safety of his own native land, and even the lives and liberties of his countrymen. And he also knew that it would be far better for the spread of useful knowledge and the true religion, that all this rich country should be in the hands of some Christian people, who would make it a place fit to live in, and to be peaceful and prosperous and happy in, than that it should be left entirely to those barbarous savages, who only made of it a place to hunt and to fish in, to fight and scalp, and to burn and torture each other like devils in. Besides this, it is the duty of every true patriot (and no one knew this better than he) to serve and defend the country, under the protection of whose laws he has lived in peace and plenty, against all her enemies, whether at home or abroad, even should she now and then be a little in the wrong; for, by so doing, he defends his own home and family, rights and liberty,—objects that should be as dear to him as life itself."

"O uncle!" exclaimed Ned with a start, as if he had just caught a passing recollection by the tail as it was about skedaddling round the corner, "tell me, will you? what kind of a life a charmed life is."

"Really Ned," cried Uncle Juvinell, "I am very glad that you mentioned it; for it puts me in mind of something I should have told you before, and which I might else have forgotten. This, however, is as good a time as any; and, when you hear what I am now going to tell you, you will readily understand, without further explanation, what is meant when it is said of a man that he bears a charmed life about him. To do this, I must anticipate a little, or, to speak more clearly, take time by the forelock, and, going forward a little in our story, tell you of a circumstance which your Uncle Juvinell, when a boy, often heard related by Dr. Craik, who was then an aged and venerable man.

"Fifteen years after poor Braddock had been laid in his unhonored grave, Col. Washington, taking with him his friend Dr. Craik, went on an exploring expedition to the Ohio, in behalf of the brave soldiers who had served under him at the Great Meadows, and to whom, it must be remembered, Gov. Dinwiddie had promised two hundred thousand acres of the best land to be found on this great river or its branches. There was peace then along the border, and little or no danger was to be apprehended from the Indians. They travelled in a large canoe, rowed by two or three hunters; and what with fishing in the streams (for they took with them their fishing tackle), what with hunting in the woods (for they took with them their hunting rifles), what with camping on the green shore at night (for they took with them their camp utensils), and what with the comfortable thought that there was not an Indian warrior within a hundred miles whose fingers were itching for their scalps (for they took with them this and many other pleasant thoughts besides), they had, you may depend upon it, a glorious time.

"One day, there came to their camp, at the mouth of the Great Kanawha, a party of Indians, headed by an old chief of grave and venerable aspect, who approached Washington with deep reverence, as if entering the presence of some superior being. After several pipes of tobacco had been smoked, and several haunches of venison had been eaten,—the first to show that they had come friendly, the last to show that they came hungry,—the old chief addressed Washington in a speech, which your Uncle Juvinell cannot repeat to you word for word as he heard it from the lips of the worthy old doctor; but he well remembers the substance thereof, and will give it you as nearly as he can in the Indian style of oratory.

"'They came and told me,' began the old chief, 'that the great Long Knife was in our country; and I was very glad. I said to them, though I be old and feeble, though the way be long, and the hills many and high, and the rivers many and wide, yet must I go and see him once more before I die; for it is the young warrior, whom, years ago, I saw shielded from our bullets by the hand of the Great Spirit. Let the pale-faces hear my words. Fifteen summers ago, when the woods and thickets were dense and green, the French and Indians went out to lay in ambuscade for the big English general, among the Monongahela hills. I took my warriors, and went along, and we lay in wait together. The English were many and strong; we were few and weak: thus we had no thought of victory in our minds, but only to give our enemies a little trouble, and keep them back a while till the big French army came down from the Great Lakes. We saw the English army cross the river and come up the hill; yet they suspected not. We saw them walk into our snare, up to the very muzzles of our guns; nor did they dream of danger, till our war-whoop went up, and our bullets began to fly as fast as winter hail. I saw the red-coats fall, and strew the ground like the red leaves of the woods nipped by an untimely frost, and smitten by the unseen hands of a mighty wind. The snows of eighty winters have fallen upon my head. I have been in many a bloody battle; yet never saw I the red life-stream run as it that day ran down Braddock's Hill from English hearts. Listen! I saw that day, among the English, a young warrior who was not an Englishman. I singled him out as a mark for my rifle; for he was tall and strong, and rode grandly, and his presence there was a danger to us. Seventeen times did I take slow and steady aim, and fire; but my bullets went astray, and found him not. Then I pointed him out to my young men, whose eyes were sharper and whose hands were steadier than mine, and bade them bring him down. It was all in vain: their bullets glanced from him as if he had been a rock. I saw two horses fall under him, shot dead; yet he rose unhurt. Then did I lay my hand on my mouth in wonder, and bade my young men turn their rifles another way; for the Great Spirit, I knew, held that young warrior in his keeping, and that his anger would be kindled against us if we desisted not. That young warrior, the favorite of Heaven, the man who is destined never to fall in battle, now stands before me. Once more mine eyes have seen him, and I shall now go away content.'