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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 Boston and New Yokk. 
 
A SUMMER 
 
 LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 
 
 MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 
 
 AUTHOR OF " FAITH GAETNEY's GIRLHOOD," " THE 
 GAVWORTHYS," ETC. 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY AUGUSTUS HOPPIN 
 
 THIRTIETH EDITION 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 New York; 11 East SeventeentVi Street 
 
 ^{le Ilitier^itie '<&n^i, CamiriiliBe 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1866, by 
 
 TICKNOE AND FIELDS, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 
To 
 
 THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 MARIA S. CUMMINS, 
 
 AND OF DAYS AMONG THE MOUNTAINS MADE BEAUTIFUL BY 
 HER COMPANIONSHIP, 
 
 THIS LITTLE STORY. 
 
k SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 ""VrOTHING but leaves — leaves — leaves 1 The 
 
 X 1 green things don't know enough to do anything 
 better!" 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite said this, standing in the bay-win- 
 dow among her plants, which had been green and flour- 
 ishing, but persistently blossomless, all winter, and now 
 the spring days were come. 
 
 Cousin Delight looked up ; and her white ruffling, 
 that she was daintily hemstitching, fell to her lap, as she 
 looked, still with a certain wide intentness in her eyes, 
 upon the pleasant window, and the bright, fresh things it 
 framed. Not the least bright and fresh among them was 
 the human creature in her early girlhood, tender and 
 pleasant in its beautiful leafage, but waiting, like any 
 other young and growing life, to prove what sort of 
 flower should come of it. 
 
 "Now you 've got one of your 'thoughts,' Cousin 
 Delight! I see it 'biggening,' as Elspie says." Leslie 
 turned round, with her little green watering-pot sus- 
 pended in her hand, waiting for the thought. 
 
 To have a thought, and to give it, were nearly simul- 
 taneous things with Cousin Delight; so true, so pure, 
 
2 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 
 
 BO unselfish, so made to give, — like perfume or music, 
 which cannot be, and be withheld, — were thoughts with 
 her. 
 
 1 must say a word, before I go further, of Delight 
 Goldthwaite. I think of her as of quite a young person ; 
 you, youthful readers, would doubtless have declared that 
 she was old, — very old, at least for a young lady. She 
 was twenty-eight, at this time of which I write; Leslie, 
 her young cousin, was just "past the half, and catching 
 up," as she said herself, — being fifteen. Leshe's mother 
 called Miss Goldthwaite, playfully, " Ladies' Delight " ; 
 and, taking up the idea, half her women-friends knew her 
 by this significant and epigrammatic title. There was 
 something doubly pertinent in it. She made you think, 
 at once, of nothing so much as heart's-ease ; a garden 
 heart's-ease, — that flower of many names ; not of the 
 firail, scentless, wild wood- violet, — she had been cultured 
 to something larger. The violet nature was there, col- 
 ored and shaped more richly, and gifted with rare fra- 
 grance — for those whose delicate sense could perceive it. 
 The very face was a pansy-face ; with its deep, large, 
 purple-blue eyes, and golden brows and lashes, the color 
 of her hair, — pale gold, so pale that careless people who 
 had perception only for such beauty as can flash upon you 
 fi'om a crowd, or across a drawing-room, said hastily that 
 she had no brows or lashes, and that this spoiled her. 
 She was not a beauty, therefore ; nor was she, in any sort, 
 a belle. She never drew around her the common atten- 
 tion that is paid eagerly to very pretty, outwardly be- 
 witching girls; and she never seemed to care for this 
 At a party, she was as apt as not to sit in a corner ; but 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOIDTHWAITE'S LIlTi. > 3 
 
 the quiet people, — the mothers, looking on, or the girls, 
 waiting for partners, — getting into that same corner also, 
 fonnd the best pleasure of their evening there. There 
 was something about her dress, too, that women appre- 
 ciated most fully ; the delicate textures, — the finishings 
 — and only those — of rare, exquisite lace, — the perfect 
 harmony of the whole unobtrusive toilet, — women 
 looked at these in wonder at the unerring instinct of her 
 taste ; in wonder, also, that they only with each other 
 raved about her. Nobody had ever been supposed to be 
 devoted to her; she had never been reported as "en- 
 gaged " ; there had never been any of this sort of gossip 
 about her ; gentlemen found her, they said, hard to get 
 acquainted with ; she had not much of the small talk which 
 must usually begin an acquaintance ; a few — her rela- 
 tives, or her elders, or the husbands of her intimate mar- 
 ried friends — understood and valued her; but it was her 
 girl-friends and women-friends who knew her best, and 
 declared that there was nobody like her ; and so came her 
 sobriquet, and the double pertmence of it. 
 
 Especially ehe was Leslie Goldthwaite's delight. Les- 
 lie had no sisters, and her aunts were old, — far older 
 than her mother; on her father's side, a broken and 
 scattered family had left few ties for her; next to her 
 mother, and even closer, in some young sympathies, she 
 clung to Cousin Delight. 
 
 With this diversion, we wil go back, now, to her, and 
 to her thought. 
 
 " I was thinking," she said, with that intent look in hel 
 eyes, " I often think, of how something else was found, 
 once, having nothing but leaves ; and of what came to it." 
 
4 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " I know," answered Leslie, with an evasive quickness, 
 and turned round with her watering-pot to her plants 
 again. 
 
 There was sometimes a bit of waywardness about Les- 
 lie Goldthwaite ; there was a iitfulness of frankness and 
 reserve. She was eager for truth ; yet now and then 
 she would thrust it aside. She said that " nobody liked 
 a nicely pointed moral better than she did ; only she 
 would just as lief it should n't be pointed at her." The 
 fact was, she was in that sensitive state in which many 
 a young girl finds herself, when she begins to ask and 
 to weigh with herself the great questions of life, and 
 shrinks shyly from the open mention of the very thing 
 she longs more fully to apprehend. 
 
 Cousin Delight took no notice ; it is, perhaps, likely 
 that she understood suflBciently well for that. She turned 
 toward the table by which she sat, and pulled towards her 
 a heavy Atlas that lay open at the map of Connecticut. 
 Beside it was Lippincott's Gazetteer, — open, also. 
 
 " Travelling, Leslie ? " 
 
 " Yes. I 've been a charming journey this morning, 
 before you came. I wonder if I ever shall travel, in 
 reality. I 've done a monstrous deal of it with maps 
 and gazetteers." 
 
 " This has n't been one of the stereotyped tours, it 
 seems." 
 
 " O no ! What 's the use of doing Niagara or the 
 White Mountains, or even New York, and Philadelphia, 
 and Washington, on the map ? I 've been one of my 
 little by-way trips ; round among the villages ; stopping 
 wherever I found one cuddled in between a river and a 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFK 5 
 
 hill, or in a little sea-shore nook. Those are the places, 
 after all, that I would hunt out, if I had plenty of money 
 to go where I liked with. It 's so pleasant to imagine 
 how the people live there, and what sort of folks they 
 would be likely to be. It is n't so much travelling as 
 living round, — awhile in one home, and then in another. 
 How many diiFerent little hiding-places there are in the 
 world I And how queer it is only really to know about 
 one or two of them I " 
 
 " What 's this place you 're at just now ? Winsted ? " 
 "Yes ; there 's where I 've brought up, at the end of 
 that bit of railroad. It 's a bigger place than I fancied, 
 chough. I always steer clear of the names that end in 
 ' ville.' They 're sure to be stupid, money-making 
 towns, all grown up in a minute, with some common 
 man's name tacked on to them, that happened to build 
 a saw-mill, or something, first. But Winsted has such 
 a sweet, little, quiet English sound. I know it never 
 began with a mill. They make pins and clocks and tools 
 and machines there now ; and it 's ' the largest and most 
 prosperous post-village of Litchfield County.' But I 
 don't care for the pins and machinery. It 's got a lake 
 alongside of it ; and Still River — don't that sound nice ? 
 — runs through ; and there are the great hills — big 
 enough to put on the map — out beyond. I can fancy 
 where the girls take their sunset walks ; and the moon- 
 light parties, boating on the pond, and the way the woods 
 look, round Still River. O yes ! that 's one of the 
 places I mean to go to." 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite lived in one of the inland cities of 
 Massachusetts. She had grown up and gone to school 
 
6 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 there, and had never yet been thirty miles away. Hei 
 father was a busy lawyer, making a handsome living fol 
 his family, and laying aside abundantly for their future 
 provision, but giving himself no lengthened recreations, 
 and scarcely thinking of them as needful for the rest. 
 
 It was a pleasant, large, brown, wooden house they 
 lived in, on the corner of two streets ; with a great, green 
 door-yard about it on two sides, where chestnut and cherry 
 trees shaded it from the public way, and flower-beds 
 brightened under the parlor windows, and about the 
 porch. Just greenness and bloom enough to suggest, 
 always, more ; just sweetness and sunshine and bird-song 
 enough, in the early summer days, to whisper of broad 
 fields and deep woods where they rioted without stint ; 
 and these days always put Leslie into a certain happy 
 impatience, and set her dreaming and imagining; and 
 she learned a great deal of her geography in the fasliion 
 that we have hinted at. 
 
 Miss Goldthwaite was singularly discursive and frag- 
 mentary in her conversation this morning, somehow. 
 She dropped the map-travelling suddenly, and asked a 
 new question. " And how comes on the linen-drawer?" 
 
 " O Cousin Del ! I 'm humiliated, — disgusted ! I feel 
 as small as butterflies' pinfeathers ! I 've been to see the 
 Haddens. Mrs. Linceford has just got home from Paris, 
 and brought them wardrobes to last to remotest poster- 
 ity ! And such things ! Such rufflings, and stitchings, 
 and embroiderings I Why, mine look — as if they 'd 
 been made by the blacksmith ! " 
 
 The " linen-drawer " was an institution of Mrs. Gold- 
 thwaite's ; resultant, partly, from her old-fashioned New 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. T 
 
 England ideas of womanly industry and thrift, — born 
 and brought up, as she had been, in a family whose tradi- 
 tions were of house-linen sufficient for a lifetime spun 
 and woven by girls before their twenty-first year, and 
 whose inheritance, from mother to daughter, was invari- 
 ably of heedfully stored personal and household plenish- 
 ings, made of pure material that was worth the laying 
 by, and carefully bleached and looked to year by year ; 
 partly, also, from a certain theory of wisdom which she 
 had adopted, that when girls were once old enough to 
 care for and pride themselves on a plentiful outfit, it was 
 best they should have it as a natural prerogative of young- 
 ladyhood, rather than that the "trousseau " should come 
 to be, as she believed it so apt to be, one of the inciting 
 temptations to heedless matrimony. I have heard of a 
 mother whose passion was for elegant old lace ; and who 
 boasted to her female friends, that, when her little daugh- 
 ter was ten years old, she had her " lace-box," with the 
 beginning of her hoard in costly contributions from the 
 stores of herself and of the child's maiden aunts. Mrs. 
 Goldthwaite did a better and more sensible thing than 
 this ; when Leslie was fifteen, she presented her with pieces 
 of beautiful linen and cotton and cambric, and bade her 
 begin to make garments which should be in dozens, to be 
 laid by, in reserve, as she completed them, until she had 
 a well-filled bureau that should defend her from the neces- 
 sity of what she called a " wretched living from hand to 
 mouth, — always having underclothing to make up, in the 
 midst of all else that she would find to do and to learn." 
 Leslie need not have been ashamed, and I don't think 
 in her heart she was, of the fresh, white, light-lying piles 
 
8 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 that had already begun to make promise of filling a 
 drawer, which she drew out as she answered Cousin 
 Delight's question. 
 
 The fine-lined gathers ; the tiny dots of stitches that 
 held them to their delicate bindings ; the hems and tucks, 
 true to a thread, and dotted with the same fairy needle- 
 dimples ; (no machine-work, but all real, dainty finger- 
 craft ;) the bits of ruffling peeping out from the folds, 
 with their edges in almost invisible whip-hems ; and here 
 and there a finishing of lovely, lace-like crochet, done at 
 odd minutes, and for " visiting-work ; " — there was some- 
 thing prettier and more precious, really, in all this, than 
 in the imported fineries which had come, without labor 
 and without thought, to her friends the Haddens. Be- 
 sides, there were the pleasant talks and readings of the 
 winter evenings, all threaded in and out, and associated 
 indelibly witl: every seam. There was the whole of 
 David Copperfield, and the beginning of Our Mutual 
 Friend, ruffled up into the night-dresses ; and some of 
 the crochet was beautiful with the rhymed pathos of 
 Enoch Arden, and some with the poetry of the Wayside 
 Inn ; and there were places where stitches had had to be 
 picked out and done over, when the eye grew dim and the 
 hand trembled while the great war-news was being read. 
 
 Leslie loved it, and had a pride in it all ; it was not, 
 truly and only, humiliation and disgust at self-comparison 
 with the Haddens, but some other and unexplained doubt 
 which moved her now, and which was stirred often by this, 
 or any other of the objects and circumstances of her life, 
 and which kept her standing there with her hand upon 
 the bureau-knob, in a sort of absence, while Cousin Delight 
 
A SUMMEK IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. .9 
 
 looked in, approved, and presently dropped quietly, like a 
 Lit of money into a contribution-box, the delicate breadths 
 of linen cambric she had finished hemstitching, and rolled 
 together among the rest. 
 
 " O, thank you ! But, Cousin Delight," said Leslie, 
 shutting the drawer, and turning short round, suddenly, 
 " I wish you 'd just tell me — what you think — is the 
 sense of that — about the fig-tree ! I suppose it's awfully 
 wicked, but I never could see. Is everything fig-leaves 
 that is n't out and out fruit, and is it all to be cursed, and 
 why should there be anything but leaves when ' the time 
 of figs was not yet ' ? " After her first hesitation, she 
 spoke quickly, impetuously, and without pause, as some- 
 thing that would come out. 
 
 " I suppose that has troubled you, as I dare say it has 
 troubled a great many other people," said Cousin Delight. 
 " It used to be a puzzle and a trouble to me. But now it 
 seems to me one of the most beautiful things of all." 
 She paused. 
 
 " I can not see how," said Leslie, emphatically. " It 
 always seems to me so — somehow — unreasonable ; and 
 — angry." 
 
 She said this in a lower tone, as afraid of the uttered 
 audacity of her own thought ; and she walked off, as she 
 spoke, toward the window once more, and stood with her 
 back to Miss Goldthwaite, almost as if she wished to have 
 done, again, with the topio. It was not easy for Leslie to 
 speak out upon such thmgs ; it almost made her feel cross 
 when she had done it. 
 
 *' People mistake the true cause and effect, I think," 
 said Delight Goldthwaite, " and so lose all the wonderful 
 
10 A SUMMER IN LESUE GOLDTHWAITK'S LIFE. 
 
 enforcement of that acted parable. It was not, ' Cursea 
 be the fig-tree because I have found nothing thereon ' ; 
 bnt, ' Let no fruit grow on thee, henceforward, forever.' 
 It seems to me I can hear the tone of tender solemnity in 
 which Jesus would say such words ; knowing, as only he 
 knew, all that they meant, and what should come, inevit- 
 ably, of such a sentence. 'And presently the fig-tree 
 withered away.' The life was nothing, any longer, from 
 the moment when it might not be, what all life is, a 
 reaching forward to the perfecting of some finiit. There 
 was nothing to come, ever again, of all its greenness and 
 beauty, and the greenness and beauty, which were only 
 a form and a promise, ceased to be. It was the way he 
 took to show his disciples, in a manner they should never 
 forget, the inexorable condition upon which all life is 
 given, and that the barren life, so soon as its barrenness 
 is absolutely hopeless, becomes a literal death." 
 
 Leslie stood still, with her back to Miss Goldthwalte, 
 and her face to the window. Her perplexity was 
 changed, but hardly cleared. There were many things 
 that crowded into her thoughts, and might have been 
 spoken ; but it was quite impossible for her to speak. 
 Impossible on this topic, and she certainly could not 
 speak, at once, on any other. 
 
 Many seconds of silence counted themselves between 
 the two. Then Cousin Delight, feeling an intuition of 
 much that held and hindered the young girl, spoke again. 
 " Does this make life seem hard ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Leslie, then, with an effort that hoarsened 
 her very voice, "frightfui." And as she spoke, she 
 turned again quickly, as if to be motionless longer wera 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFK 11 
 
 lo invite more talk, and went over to the other window 
 where her bird-cage hung, and began to take down the 
 glasses. 
 
 " Like ail parables, it is manifold," said Delight, gen- 
 tly. " There is a great hope in it, too." 
 
 Leslie was at her basin, now, turning the water-faucet, 
 to rinse and refill the little drinking-vessel. She handled 
 the things quietly, but she made no pause. 
 
 "It shows that, while we see the leaf, we may have 
 hope of the fruit, — in ourselves, or in- others." 
 
 She could not see Leslie's face. If she had, she would 
 have perceived a quick lifting and lightening upon it. 
 Then, a questioning that would not very long be re- 
 pressed to silence. 
 
 The glasses were put in the cage again, and presently 
 Leslie came back to a little low seat by Miss Gold- 
 thwaite's side, which she had been occupying before all 
 this talk began. " Other people puzzir me as much as my- 
 self," she said. " I think the whole world is running to 
 leaves, sometimes." 
 
 " Some things flower almost invisibly, and hide away 
 their fruit under thick foliage. It is often only when the 
 winds shake their leaves down, and strip the branches 
 bare, that we find the best that has been growing." 
 
 " They make a great fuss and flourish with the leaves, 
 though, as long as they can. And it 's who shall grow the 
 broadest and tallest, and flaunt out with the most of them. 
 A-fter all, it 's natural ; and they are beautifiil, in themselves. 
 A.nd there 's a ' time ' for leaves, too, before the figs." 
 
 " Exactly. We have a right to look for the leaves, 
 and to be glad of them. That is a part of the parable." 
 
12 A SUMMKK m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " Cousin Delight ! Let 's talk of real things, and let 
 the parable alone a minute." 
 
 Leslie sprang, impulsively, to her bureau, again, and 
 flung forth the linen-drawer. 
 
 "There are my fig-leaves, — some of them, — and 
 here are more." She turned, with a quick movement, to 
 her wardrobe ; pulled out and uncovered a bonnet-box 
 which held a dainty headgear of the new spring fashion, 
 and then took down from a hook and tossed upon it 
 a silken garment that fluttered with fresh ribbons. 
 "How much of this outside business is right, and how 
 much wrong, I should be glad to know? It all takes 
 time and thoughts ; and those are life. How much life 
 must go into the leaves ? That 's what puzzles me. I 
 can't do without the things ; and I can't be let to take 
 ' clear comfort ' in them, as grandma says, either." She 
 was on the floor, now, beside her little fineries ; her 
 hands clasped together about one knee, and her face 
 turned up to Cousin Delight's. She looked as if she half 
 believed herself to be ill used. 
 
 " And clothes are but the first want, — the piimitive 
 fig-leaves ; the world is full of other outside business, — 
 ^s much outside as these," pursued Miss Goldthwaite, 
 thoughtfiilly. "Everything is outside. Learning, and 
 behaving, and going, and doing, and seeing, and hearing, 
 and having. ' It 's all a muddle,' as the poor man says 
 in Hard Times." 
 
 "I don't think I can do without the parable," said 
 Cousin Delight. " The real inward principle of the tree 
 —that which corresponds to thought and purpose in the 
 soul — urges always to the finishing of its life in the fruit 
 
A 6UUUEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 18 
 
 Tho leaves are only by the way, — an outgrowth of the 
 Bame vitality, and a process toward the end ; but never, 
 in any living thing, the end itseF." 
 
 " Um," said Leslie, in her nonchalant fashion again , 
 her chin between her two hands now, and her head 
 making little appreciative nods. " That 's hke condensed 
 milk ; a great deal in a little of it. I '11 put the fig- 
 leaves away now, and think it over." 
 
 But, as she sprang up, and came round behind Misa 
 Goldthwaite's chair, she stopped and gave her a little 
 kiss on the top of her head. If Cousin Delight had seen, 
 there was a bright softness in the eyes, which told of 
 feeling, and of gladness that welcomed the quick touch of 
 truth. 
 
 Miss Goldthwaite knew one good thing, — when she 
 had driven her nail. " She never hammered in the head 
 with a punch, like a carpenter," Leslie said of her. She 
 believed that, in moral tool-craft, that finishing imple- 
 ment belonged properly to the hand of an after-work- 
 man. 
 
14 A SUMMEE IN LESLIE GOLDTIIWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 II. 
 
 I HAVE mentioned one little theory, relating solely to 
 domestic thrift, which guided Mrs. Goldthwaite in hex 
 arrangements for her daughter. I believe that, with this 
 exception, she brought up her family very nearly without 
 any theory whatever. She did it very much on the 
 taking-for-granted system. She took for granted that her 
 children were born with the same natural perceptions as 
 herself; that they could recognize, httle by little, as they 
 grew into it, the principles of the moral world, — reason, 
 right, propriety, — as they recognized, growing into them, 
 the conditions of their outward living. She made her 
 own life a consistent recognition of these, and she lived 
 openly before them. There was never any course pur- 
 sued with sole calculation as to its effect on the children. 
 Family discussion and deliberation was seldom with closed 
 doors. Questions that came up were considered as they 
 came ; and the young members of the household perceived 
 as soon as their elders the " reasons why " of most deci- 
 sions. They were part and parcel of the whole rSgime. 
 They learned pohteness by being as politely attended to 
 as company. They learned to be reasonable by seeing 
 how the reason compelled father and mother, and not by 
 having their vision stopped short at the arbitrary fact that 
 father and mother compelled them. I think, on the whole, 
 the Goldthwaite no-method turned out as good a method 
 as any. Men have found out lately that horses even may 
 be guided without reins. 
 
A SIMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 15 
 
 It was characteristic, therefore, that Mrs. Goldth waite — 
 receiving one day a ccifdential note proposing to her a 
 pleasant plan in behalt" of Leslie, and intended to guard 
 against a premature delight and eagerness, and so perhaps 
 an ultimate disappointment for that young lady — should 
 instantly, on reading it, lay it open upon the table before 
 her daughter. " From Mrs. Linceford," she said, " and 
 concerning you." 
 
 Leslie took it up, expecting, possibly, an invitation to 
 tea. When she saw what it really was, her dark eyes 
 almost blazed with sudden, joyous excitement. 
 
 " Of course, I should be delighted to say yes for you," 
 said Mrs. Goldthwaite, " but there are things to be con- 
 sidered. I can't tell how it will strike your father." 
 
 " School," suggested Leslie, the light in her eyes quiet- 
 ing a little. 
 
 "Yes, and expense; though I don't think he would 
 refuse on that score. I should have liked" — Mrs. Gold- 
 thwaite's tone was only half, and very gently, objecting ; 
 there was an inflection of ready self-relinquishment in it 
 also — " to have had your first journey with me. But 
 you might have waited a long time for that." 
 
 If Leslie were disappointed in the end, she would have 
 known that her mother's heart had been with her from 
 the beginning, and gi'own people seldom realize how this 
 helps even the merest child to bear a denial. 
 
 "There is only a month now to vacation," said the 
 young girl. 
 
 " What do you think Mr. Waylie would say ? " 
 
 " I really think," answered LesKe, after a pause, •* that 
 he would say it was better than books." 
 
16 A SUMMKK IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 They sat at their sewing together, after this, without 
 speaking very much more, at the present time, about it. 
 Mrs. Goldthwaite was thinking it over in her motherly 
 mind, and in the mind of Leshe thought and hope ana 
 anticipation were dancing a reel with each other. It is 
 time to tell the reader of the what and why. 
 
 Mrs. Linceford, the elder married daughter of the 
 Hadden family, — many years the elder of her sisters, 
 Jeannie and Elinor, — was about to take them, under her 
 care, to the mountains for the summer, and she kindly 
 proposed joining Leslie Goldthwaite to her charge. " The 
 Mountains " in New England means always, in common 
 speech, the one royal range of the White Hills. 
 
 You can think what this opportunity was to a young 
 girl full of fancy, loving to hunt out, even by map and 
 gazetteer, the by-nooks of travel, and wondering already 
 if she should ever really journey otherwise. You can 
 think how she waited, trying to believe she could bear 
 any decision, for the final determination concerning 
 her. 
 
 " If it had been to Newport or Saratoga, I should have 
 said no at once," said Mr. Goldthwaite. " Mrs. Linceford 
 js a gay, extravagant woman, and the Haddens' ideas don't 
 precisely suit mine. But the mountains, — she can't get 
 into much harm there." 
 
 " I should n't have cared for Newport, or the Springs, 
 father, truly," said Leslie, with a little hopeful flutter ol 
 eagerness in her voice, "but the real mountains, — 
 father ! " 
 
 The "O father 1" was not without its weight. Also 
 Mr. WayUe, whom Mr. Goldthwaite called on and con 
 
A SUSIMEK ra LESLIE GOLDTHWATTE'S LIFE. 17 
 
 suited, threw his opinion into the favoring scale, precisely 
 as Leslie had foreseen. He was a teacher who did not 
 imagine aU possible educational advantage to be shut up 
 within the four walls of his or any other school-room. 
 " She is just the girl to whom it will do great good," he 
 Slid. Leslie's last week's lessons were not accomplished 
 the less satisfactorily for this word of his, and the pleasure 
 it opened to her. 
 
 There came a few busy days of stitching and starching, 
 and crimping and packing, and then, in the last of June, 
 they would be off. They were to go on Monday. The 
 Haddens came over on Saturday afternoon, just as Leslie 
 had nearly put the last things into her trunk, — a new 
 trunk, quite her own, with her initials in black paint upon 
 the russet leather at each end. On the bed lay her pretty 
 balmoral suit, made purposely for mountain wear, and just 
 finished. The young girls got together here, in Leslie's 
 chamber, of course. 
 
 " O how pretty I It 's perfectly charming, — the love- 
 liest balmoral I ever saw in my life ! " cried Jeannie 
 Hadden, seizing upon it instantly as she entered the room, 
 " Why, you '11 look Uke a hamadryad, all in these wood- 
 browns I " 
 
 It was an uncommonly pretty striped petticoat, in two 
 alternating shades of dark and golden brown, with just a 
 hair-line of black defining their edges ; and the border 
 was one broad, soft, velvety band of black, and a narrower 
 one following it above and below, easing the contrast and 
 blending the colors. The jacket, or rather shirt, finished 
 at the waist with a bit of a polka frill, was a soft flannel, 
 ■*f the bright brown shade, braided with the darkei hue. 
 
18 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWATTE'S LIFE. 
 
 and with black ; and two pairs of bright brown raw-silk 
 blockings, marked transversely with mere thread-lines of 
 black, completed the mountain outfit. 
 
 " Yes ; all I want is — " said Leslie, stopping short as 
 she took up the hat that lay there also, — a last summer's 
 hat, a plain black straw, with a slight brim, and orna- 
 mented only with a round lace veil and two bits of ostrich 
 feather. " But never mind ! It '11 do well enough I " 
 
 As she laid it down again and ceased speaking. Cousin 
 Delight came in, straight from Boston, where she had 
 been doing two days' shopping; and. in her hand she 
 carried a parcel in white paper. I was going to say a 
 round parcel, which it would have been but for something 
 which ran out in a sharp tangent from one side, and pushed 
 the wrappings into an odd angle. This she put into 
 Leslie's hands. 
 
 " A fresh — fig-leaf for you, my dear." 
 
 " What does she mean ? " cried the Haddens, coming 
 close to see. 
 
 " Only a little Paradise-fashion of speech between Cous- 
 in Del and me," said Leslie, coloring a little and laughing, 
 while she began, somewhat hurriedly, to remove the 
 wrappings. 
 
 "What have you done? And how did you come to 
 think ? " she exclaimed, as the thing enclosed appeared : 
 a round brown straw turban, — not a staring turban, but 
 one of tnose that slope with a little graceful downward 
 droop upon the brow, — bound with a pheasant's breast, 
 the wing shooting out jauntily, in the tangent I men- 
 tioned, over the right ear ; — all in bright browns, in 
 lovely harmony with the rest of the hamadryad costume. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITES I-IFE. 19 
 
 " It 'b no use to begin to thank you, Cousin Del. It 'a 
 just one of the things you 're always doing, and rejoice 
 in doing." The happy face was fall of loving thanks, 
 plainer than many words. " Only you 're a kind of a 
 sarpmt yourself, after all, I 'm afraid, with your beguile- 
 ments. I wonder if you thought of that," whispered 
 Leslie, merrily, while the others oJi-oKd over the gift. 
 " What else do you think I shall be good for when I get 
 all those on ? " 
 
 "I'll venture you," said Cousin Delight; and the 
 trifling words conveyed a real, earnest confidence, the 
 best possible antidote to the " beguilement." 
 
 " One thing is funny," said Jeannie Hadden, suddenly, 
 •with an accent of demur. " We 're all phe^ants. Our 
 new hats are pheasants, too. I don't know what Augusta 
 will think of such a covey of us." 
 
 " O, it 's no matter," said Elinor. " This is a golden 
 pheasant, on brown straw, and ours arc purple, on bliick. 
 Besides, we all look different enough." 
 
 " I suppose it doesn't signify," returned Jeannie ; " and 
 if Augusta thinks it does, she may just give me that black 
 and white plover of hers I wanted so. I think our com- 
 plexions are all pretty well suited." 
 
 This was true. The fair hair and deep blue eyes ot 
 Elinor were as pretty under the purple plumage as 
 Jeannie's darker locks and br:'liant bloom; and there 
 was a wonderftil bright mingling of color between the 
 golden pheasant's breast and the gleaming chestnut waves 
 it crowned, as Leslie took her ha^ and tried it on. 
 
 This was one of the little touches of perfect taste and 
 otdaptation which could sometimes make Leslie Gold- 
 
r 
 
 20 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 tbwaite almost beautiful, and was there ever a girl of 
 fifteen who would not like to be beautiful if she could ? 
 This wish, and the thought and effort it would induce, 
 were likely to be her great temptation. Passably pretty 
 girls, who may, with care, make themselves often more 
 than passable, have far the hardest of it with their con- 
 sciences about these things ; and Leslie had a conscience, 
 and was reflective for her age, — and we have seen how 
 questions had begun to trouble her. 
 
 A Sunday between a packing and a journey is a trying 
 day always. There are the trunks, and it is impossible 
 not to think of the getting up and getting off" to-morrow ; 
 and one hates so to take out fresh sleeves and collars and 
 pocket-handkerchiefs, and to wear one's nice white skirts.* 
 It is a Sunday put off", too probably, with but odds and 
 ends of thought, as well as apparel. 
 
 Leslie went to church, of course, — the Goldthwaites 
 were always regular in this, — and she wore her quiet 
 straw bonnet. Mrs. Goldthwaite had a feeling that hats 
 were rather pert and coquettish for the sanctuary. Never 
 theless they met the Haddens in the porch, in the glory of 
 their purple pheasant plumes, whereof the long tail-feath- 
 ers made great circles in the air as the young heads turned 
 this way and that, in the excitement of a few snatched 
 words before they entered. 
 
 The organ was playing ; and the low, deep, tremulous 
 rumble that an organ gives sometimes, when it seems to 
 creep under and vibrate all things with a strange, vital 
 thrill, overswept their trivial chat, and made Leslie al- 
 most shiver. " O, I wish they would n't do that," she 
 said, turning to go in. 
 
A SUMMnB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 21 
 
 " What ? " said Jeannie Haddeii, unaware. 
 " Touch the nerve. The great nerve — of creation." 
 " What queer things Les' Goldthwaite says sometimes,'' 
 whispered Elinor ; and they passed the inner door. 
 
 The Goldthwaites sat two pews behind the Haddens. 
 LesHe could not help thinking how elegant Mrs. Lince- 
 ford was, as she swept in, in her rich black silk, and real 
 lace shawl, and delicate, costly bonnet ; and the perfectly 
 
22 A SUMMER m LESLIE COID'IUWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 gloved hand that upheld a bit of extravagance in Valen- 
 ciennes lace and cambric made devotion seem — what ? 
 The more graceful and touching in one who had all this 
 world's luxuries, or — almost a mockery ? 
 
 The pheasant-plumed hats went decorously down in 
 prayer-time, but the tail-feathers ran up perker than ever, 
 fi'om the posture ; Leslie saw this, because she had lifled 
 her own head and unclosed her eyes in a self-indignant 
 honesty, when she found on what her secret thoughu 
 were running. Were other people so much better than 
 she ? And eould they do both things ? How much was 
 right in all this that was outwardly so beguiling ? and 
 where did the " serving Mammon " begin. 
 
 Was everything so much intenser and more absorbing 
 ■with her than with the Haddens ? Why could she not 
 take things as they came, as these girls did, or seemed to 
 do? Be glad of her pretty things, — her pretty looks 
 even, — her coming pleasures, — with no misgivings or 
 self-searchings, and then turn round and say her prayers 
 properly ? 
 
 Was n't beauty put into the world for the sake of beau- 
 ty ? And was n't it right to love it, and make much of 
 it, and multiply it ? What were arts and human ingenu- 
 ities for, and the things given to work with ? All this 
 grave weighing of a great moral question was in the mind 
 cf the young girl of fifteen again this Sunday morning. 
 Such doubts and balancings begin far earlier, often, than 
 ws are apt to think. 
 
 The minister shook hands cordially and respectfully 
 tnth Mrs. Linceford after church. He had no hesitation 
 at hor stylishness and fineries. Everybody took every 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 23 
 
 bod J else for granted ; and it was all right, Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite sui)posed, except in her own foolish, unregulatec? 
 thoughts. Everybody else had done their Sunday dutyt 
 and it was enough ; only she had been all wrong and 
 astray, and in confusion. There was a time for everything, 
 only her times and thoughts would mix themselves up 
 and interfere. Perhaps she was very weak-minded, and 
 the only way for her would be to give it all up, and weai' 
 drab, or whatever else might be most unbecoming, and be 
 fiercely severe, mortifying the flesh. She got over that 
 — her young nature reacting — as they all walked up 
 the street together, while the sun shone down smihngly 
 upon the world in Sunday best, and the flowers were gay 
 in the door-yards, and Miss Milliken's shop was reveren- 
 tial with the green shutters before the windows that had 
 been gorgeous yesterday with bright ribbons and fresh 
 fashions ; and there was something thankfiil in her feel- 
 ing of the pleasantness that was about her, and a cer- 
 tainty that she should only grow morose if she took to 
 resisting it all. She would be as good as she could, and 
 let the pleasantness and the prettiness come "by the 
 way." Yes, that was just what Cousin Delight had said. 
 "All these things shall be added," — was not that the 
 Gospel word ? So her troubling thought was laid for the 
 hour ; but it should come up again. It was in the 
 " seeking first " that the question lay. By and by she 
 would go back of the other to this, and see clearer, — in 
 the light, perhaps, of something that had been alreadj 
 given her, and which, as she i.ved on toward a fiiUei 
 readiness for it, should be "brought to her remem 
 brance." 
 
24 A SUUUEB IK LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Monday brought the perfection of a traveller's morn- 
 ing. There had been a shower during the night, and 
 the highways lay cool, moist, and dark-brown between 
 the green of the fields and the clean-washed, red-brick 
 pavements of the town. There would be no dust even 
 on the railroad, and the air was an impalpable draught of 
 delight. To the three young girls, standing there under 
 the station-portico, — for they chose the smell of the 
 morning rather than the odors of apples and cakes and 
 indescribables which go to make up the distinctive atmos- 
 phere of a railway waiting-room, — there was but one 
 thing to be done to-day in the world ; — one thing for 
 which the sun rose, and wheeled himself toward that 
 point in the heavens which would make eight o'clock 
 down below. Of all the ships that might sail this day 
 out of harbors, or the trains that might steam out of cities 
 across states, they recked nothing but of this that was to 
 take them toward the hiUs. There were unfortunates, 
 doubtless, bound elsewhere, by peremptory necessity 
 there were people who were going nowhere, but about 
 their daily work and errands ; all these were simply to 
 be pitied, or wondered at, as to how they could feel not 
 to be going upon a mountain journey. It is queer to 
 think, on a last Thursday in November, or on a Fourth 
 of July, of States where there may not be a Thanksgiv- 
 ing, or of far-off lands that have no Independence day. 
 It was just as strange, somehow, to imagine how this 
 day, that was to them the culminating point of so much 
 happy anticipation, the beginning of so much certain joy, 
 could be otherwise, and yet be anything to the super 
 nwmerary people wW ftlled up around them the life thAi 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 25 
 
 centred in just this to them. Yet in truth it was, to 
 most folks, simply a fair Monday morning, and an ex- 
 cellent " drying day." 
 
 They bounded off along the iron track, — the great 
 eteam-pulse throbbed no faster than in time to their 
 bright, young eagerness. It had been a momentous mat- 
 ter to decide upon their seats, of which there had been 
 opportunity for choice when they entered the car ; at last 
 they had been happily settled, face to face, by the good- 
 natured removal of a couple of young farmers, who saw 
 that the four ladies wished to be seated together. Their 
 hand-hags were hung up, their rolls of shawls disposed 
 beneath their feet, and Mrs. Linceford had taken out her 
 novel. The Haddens had each a book also in her bag, 
 to be perfectly according to rule in their equipment ; but 
 they were not old travellers enough to care to begin 
 upon them yet. As to Leslie Goldthwaite, her book lay 
 ready open before her, for long, contented reading, in 
 two chapters, both visible at once ; — the broad, open 
 coMntr_^', with its shifting pictures and suggestions of life 
 and pleaisantness ; and the carriage interior, with its dis- 
 similar human freight, and its yet more varied hints of 
 history and character and purpose. 
 
 She made a story in her own mind, half unconsciously, 
 of every one about her. Of the pretty girl alone, with 
 no elaborate travelling arrangements, going only, it was 
 evident, from one way-station to another, perhaps to 
 Bpund a summer day with a friend. Of the stout old 
 country grandmamma, with a basket full of doughnuts and 
 early apples, that made a spiciness and orchard fragrance 
 til about her, and that she surely never meant to eat her- 
 
26 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 self, seeing, first, that she had not a tooth in her head, 
 and also that she made repeated anxious requests of the 
 conductor, catching him by the coat-skirts as he passed, 
 to " let her know in season when they began to get into 
 Hartley " ; who asked, confidentially, of her next neigh- 
 bor, a well-dressed elderly gentleman, if "he did u't 
 think it was about as cheap comin' by the cars as it 
 would ha' ben to hire a passage any other way ? ' and in- 
 nocently endured the smile that her query called forth 
 on half a dozen faces about her. The gentlemau, withowt 
 a smile, courteously lowered his newspaper to reply that 
 " he always thought it better to avail one's self zi estab- 
 lished conveniences rather than to waste time in inde- 
 pendent contrivances " ; and the old lady sat back, — as 
 . far back as she dared, considering her momentary appre- 
 hension of Hartley, — quite happily complacent in the 
 confirmation of her own wisdom. 
 
 There was a trig, not to say prim, spinster, without a 
 vestige of comeliness in her face, save the comeliness of 
 a clear, clean, energetic expression, — such as a new 
 broom or a bright tea-kettle might have, suggesting capa- 
 city for house-thrift and hearth-comfort, — who wore a 
 gray straw bonnet, clean and neat as if it had not lasted 
 for six years at least, which its fashion evidenced, and 
 which, having a bright green tuft of artificial grass stuck 
 jrbitrarily upon its brim by way of modern adornment, 
 put Leslie mischievously in mind of a roof so old that 
 blades had sprouted in the eaves. She was glad after 
 Wards that she had not spoken her mischief. 
 
 What made life beautiful to all these people ? These 
 brmers, who put on at day^^reak their coa-se homespun, 
 
A SXJMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAIXE'S UFE 27 
 
 ibr long hours of rough labor? These homely, liouie- 
 bred women, who knew nothing of graceful fashions, — 
 who had always too much to do to think of elegance in 
 doing ? Perhaps that was ju^t it ; they had always 
 something to do, something outside of themselves ; in 
 their honest, earnest lives there was httle to tempt them 
 to a frivolous self-engrossment. Leslie touched close 
 upon the verj- help and solution she wanted, as she 
 thought these thoughts. 
 
 Opposite to her there sat a poor man, to whom there 
 had happened a great misfor<*ine. One eye was lost, 
 and the cheek was drawn and marked by some great 
 scar of wound or burn. One half his face was a fearful 
 blot. How did people bear such things as these, — to go 
 
28 ■ A SUMMER rS LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE. 
 
 through the world knowing that it could never be pleas- 
 ant to any human being to look upon them ? that an in- 
 stinct of pity and courtesy even would turn every casua> 
 glance away ? There was a strange, sorrowful pleading 
 in the one expressive side of the man's countenance, 
 and a singularly untoward incident presently called it 
 forth, and made it almost ludicrously pitiful. A bustling 
 fellow entered at a way-station, his arms full of a great 
 frame that he carried. As he blundered along the pas- 
 sage, looking for a seat, a jolt of the car, in starting, 
 pitched him suddenly into the vacant place beside this 
 man ; and the open expanse of the large looking-glass — 
 for it was that which the frame held — was fairly smitten, 
 like an insult of fate, into the very face of the unfortunate. 
 
 "Beg pardon," the new-comer said, in an off-hand 
 way, as he settled himself, holding the glass full before 
 the other while he righted it ; and then, for the first 
 time, giving a quick glance toward him. The astonish- 
 ment — the intuitive repulsion — the consciousness of 
 what he had done, betokened by the instant look of the 
 one man, and the helpless, mute " How could you ? " that 
 seemed spoken in the strange, uprolled, one-sided expres- 
 sion of the other, — these involuntarily-met regards made 
 a brief concurrence at once sad and irresistibly funny, as 
 80 many things in this strange life are. 
 
 The man of the mirror inclined his burden quietly the 
 other way ; and now it reflected the bright faces op- 
 posite, under the pheasant plumes. Was it any delight 
 to Leslie to see her own face so ? What was the use cif 
 being — what right had she to wish to be — pretty and 
 pleasant to look at, when there were such utter lifelong 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 29 
 
 loss and disfigurement in the world for others? Why 
 should it not as well happen to her ? And how did the 
 world seem to such a person, and where was the worth 
 while of it ? This was the question which lingered last 
 in her mind, and to which all else leverted. To he able 
 to bear ; perhaps this was it ; and this was greater, in- 
 deed, than any outer grace. 
 
 Such as these were the wayside meanings that came to 
 Leslie Goldthwaite that morning in the first few hours of 
 her journey. Meanwhile, Jeannie and Elinor Hadden 
 had begun to be tired; and Mrs. Linceford, not much 
 entertained with her novel, held it half closed over her 
 finger, drew her brown veil closely, and sat with her eyes 
 shut, compensating herself with a doze for her early 
 rising. Had the same things come to these ? Not pre- 
 cisely ; something else, perhaps. In all things, one is 
 still taken and another left. I can only follow, minutely, 
 one. 
 
30 A SUMMEE IN LESLIK GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE road left the flat farming country now, and turned 
 northward, up the beautiful river valley. There was 
 plenty to enjoy outside ; and it was growing raore and 
 more lovely with almost every mile. They left the great 
 towns gradually behind ; each succeeding one seemed 
 more simply rural. Young girls were gathered on the plat- 
 forms at the little stations where they stopped some- 
 times ; it was the grand excitement of the place, — the 
 coming of the train, — and to these village lasses was what 
 the piazzas or the springs are to gay dwellers at Saratoga. 
 By dinner time they steamed up to the stately back 
 staircase of the " Pemigewasset." In the little parlor 
 where they smoothed their hair and rested a moment 
 before going to the dining-hall, they met again the lady 
 of the grass-grown bonnet. She took this off, making 
 herself comfortable, in her primitive fashion, for dinner ; 
 and then Leslie noticed how little it was from any poverty 
 of nature that the fair and abundant hair, at least, had not 
 been made use of to take down the severe primness of 
 her outward style. It did take it down, in spite of all, 
 the moment the gray straw was removed. The great 
 round coil behind was all real, and solid, though it was 
 wound about with no thought save of security, and fas 
 tened with a buffalo-horn comb. Hair was a matter ol 
 tourse ; the thing was, to keep it out of the way ; that 
 was what the fashion of this head expressed, and nothing 
 more. Where it was tucked over the small ears, — and 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE's LIFE. 3l 
 
 native refinement or the other thing shows very plainly 
 m the ears, — it lay fiiU, and shaped into a soft curve. 
 She was only plain, not ugly, after all ; and they are very 
 different things, — there being a beauty of plainness in 
 men and women, as there is in a rich fabric, sometimes. 
 
 Elinor Hadden stood by a window with her back to the 
 others, while Leslie was noticing these things. She did 
 not complain at first ; one does n't like to allow, at once, 
 that the toothache, or a mischance like this that had hap- 
 pened to her, is an established fact, — one is in for it the 
 moment one does that. But she had got a cinder in her 
 eye ; and though she had winked, and stared, and rolled 
 her eyelid under, and tried all the approved and instinctive 
 means, it seemed persistent ; and she was forced at last, 
 just as her party was going in to dinner, to acknowledge 
 that this traveller's misery had befallen her, and to make 
 up her mind to the pain and wretchedness and ugliness 
 of it for hours, if not even for days. Her face was quite 
 disfigured already ; the afflicted eye was bloodshot, and 
 the whole cheek was red with tears and rubbing; she 
 could only follow blindly along, her handkerchief up 
 and, half groping into the seat offered her, begin com- 
 fortlessly to nelp herself to some soup with her left hand. 
 There was leaning across to inquire and pity ; there were 
 half a dozen things suggested, to which she could only 
 reply, forlornly and impatiently, "I've tried it." None 
 of them could eat much, or with any satisfaction ; this 
 atom in the wrong place set everything wrong all at onc< 
 (vitji four people who, tih now, had been so cheery. 
 
 The spinster lady was seated at some little distance 
 rtown, on the opposite side. She began to send quick. 
 
32 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 interested glances over at them ; to make little half- 
 starts toward them, as if she would speak ; and at last, 
 leaving her own dinner unfinished, she suddenly pushed 
 back her chair, got up, and came round. She touched 
 Elinor Hadden on the shoulder, without the least ado 
 of ceremony. " Come out here with me," she said. " 1 
 can set you right in half a minute"; — and, confident 
 of being followed, moved off briskly out of the long hall. 
 
 Elinor gave a one-sided, questioning glance at her sis- 
 ters, before she complied, reminding Leslie comically ol 
 the poor, one-eyed man in the cars ; and presently, w^ith 
 a little hesitation, Mrs. Linceford and Jeannie compro- 
 mised the matter by rising themselves and accompany- 
 ing Elinor from the room. Leslie, of course, went also. 
 
 The lady had her gray bonnet on when they got back 
 to the little parlor ; there is no time to lose in "mere wait 
 ing for anything at a railway dining-place ; and she had 
 her bag — a veritable, old-fashioned, home-made carpet 
 thing —open on a chair before her, and in her hand a 
 long, knit purse with steel beads and rings. Out of this 
 nhe took a twisted bit of paper, and from the paper a 
 .ninute something which she popped between her lips as 
 ghe replaced the other things. Then she just beckoned, 
 iiastily, to Elinor. 
 
 " It 's only an eyestone ; did you ever have one in ? 
 Well, you need n't be afraid of it ; I 've had 'em in 
 hundreds of times. You wouldn't know 'twas there, 
 and it'll just ease all the worry; and by and by it'll 
 drop out of itself, cinder and all. They're terribly teas- 
 ing things, cinders ; and somebody 's always sure to geJ 
 one. I always keep three eyestones in my purse. You 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 83 
 
 Deed n't mind my not having it back ; I 've got a little 
 glass bottle fuil at home, and it 's wonderful the sight oi 
 comfort they ve been to folks.'' 
 
 Elinor shrunk; Mrs. Linceford showed a little high- 
 bred demur about accepting the oiFered aid of their 
 unknown travelling-companion ; but the good woman 
 comprehended nothing of this, and went on insisting. 
 
 "You'd better let me put it in right oflF; it's only 
 just to drop it under the eyelid, and it '11 work round 
 till it finds the speck. But you can take it and put it 
 in yourself, when you 've made up your mind, if yon 'd 
 rather." With which she darted her head qiiickly from 
 side to side, looking about the room, and, spying a scrap 
 of paper on a table, had the eyestone twisted in it in an 
 instant, and pressed it into Elinor's hand. " You 'U be 
 glad enough of it, yet," said she, and then took up her 
 bag, and moved quickly off among the other passengei-s 
 descending to the train. 
 
 " What a funny woman, to be always carrying eye- 
 Btones about, and putting them in people's eyes 1 " said 
 Jeannie. 
 
 " It was quite kind of her, I 'm sure," said Mrs. Lince- 
 ford, with a mingling in her tone of acknowledgment and 
 of polite tolerance for a great liberty. When elegant 
 people break their necks or their limbs, common onej 
 may approach and assist; as, when a house takes fire, 
 persons get in who never did before ; and perhaps a 
 suffijring eye may come into the catalogue of misfor- 
 tunes sufficient to equalize difierecces for the time being. 
 But it is queer for a woman to make free to go without 
 her own dinner to offer nelp to a stranger in pain. Not 
 2* «■ 
 
84 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 mauy people,- in any sense of the word, go aboat pro- 
 rided with eyestones against the chance cinders that may 
 worry others. Something in this touched Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite with a curious sense of a beauty in living that 
 was not external. 
 
 If it had not been for Elinor's mishap and inability to 
 enjoy, it would have been pure dehght from the very 
 beginning, this afternoon's ride. They had their seats 
 upon the "mountain side," where the view of the 
 thronging hills was like an ever-moving panorama ; as, 
 winding their way farther and farther up into the heart 
 of the wild and beautiful region, the horizon seemed 
 continually to fill with always vaster shapes, that lifted 
 themselves, or emerged, over and from behind each 
 other, like mustering clans of giants, bestirred and curi- 
 ous, because of the invasion among their fastnesses of 
 this sprite of steam. 
 
 " Where you can come down, I can go up," it seemed to 
 fizz, in its strong, exulting whisper, to the river ; passing 
 it always, yet never getting by ; tracking, step by step, 
 the great stream backward toward its small beginnings. 
 
 " See, there are real blue peaks ! " cried Leslie, joy- 
 ously, pointing away to the north and east, where the 
 outlines lay faint and lovely in the far distance. 
 
 " O, I wish I could see I I'm losing it all ! " said Elinor, 
 plaintively and blindfold. 
 
 " Why don't you try the eyestone ? " said Jeannie. 
 
 But Elinor shrunk, even yet, from deliberately putting 
 that great thing in her eye, agonized already by the pres- 
 ence of a mote. 
 
 There came a touch on her shoulder, as before. The 
 
A StJMMEK IN LESLIfl GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFK 35 
 
 good woman of the gray bonnet had come forward fi'om 
 ber scat farther down the car. 
 
 " I 'm going to stop presently," she said, at " East 
 Haverhill ; and I should feel more satisfied in my mind 
 if you 'd just let me see you easy before I go. Besides, 
 if you don't do something quick, the cinder will get so 
 hbJded in, and make such an inflammation, that a dozen 
 eyestones would n'1 draw it out." 
 
 At this terror, poor Elinor yielded, in a negative sort 
 of way. She ceased to make resistance when her un- 
 known friend, taking the little twist of paper from the 
 hand still fast closed over it with the half-conscious 
 grasp of pain, dexterously unrolled it, and produced the 
 wonderful chalky morsel. 
 
 " Now, ' let's see, says the blind man "' ; and she drew 
 down hand and handkerchief with determined yet gentle 
 touch. " Wet it in your ow^n mouth " ; — and the eye- 
 stone was between Elinor's lips before she could refuse 
 or be aware. Then one thumb and finger was held to 
 take it again, whUe the other made a sudden pinch at 
 the lower eyelid, and, drawing it at the outer comer 
 before it could so much as quiver away again, the little 
 white stone was slid safely under. 
 
 " Now ' wink as much as you please,' as the man said 
 that took an awful looking daguerreotype of me once. 
 Good by. Here 's where I get out. And there they 
 all are to meet me." And then, the cars stopping, she 
 made her way, \»ith her carpet-bag and parasol and a 
 great newspaper bundle, gathered up hurriedly fi-om 
 goodness knows where, along the passage, and out upon 
 the platform. 
 
86 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " Why, it 's the strangest thing I I don't feel it in tha 
 least I Do you soppose it ever will come out again, Au 
 gusta?" cried Elinor, in a tone greatly altered from any 
 in which she had spoken for two hours. 
 
 " Of course it wUl," cried " Gray-bonnet " from be- 
 neath the window. " Don't be under the least mite oi 
 concern about anything but looking out for it when it 
 does, to keep it against next time." 
 
 Leslie saw the plain, kindly woman surrounded in a 
 minute by half a dozen young eager welcomers and 
 claimants, and a whole history came out in the unre- 
 served exclamations of the few instants for which the 
 train delayed. 
 
 " 0, it 's such a blessing you 've come ! I don't know 
 as Emma Jane would have been married at aU if you 
 hadn't!" 
 
 " We warn't sure you 'd get the letter." 
 
 " Or as Aunt 'Nisby would spare you," 
 
 " 'Life wanted to come over on his crutches. He 's just 
 got his new ones, and he gets about first rate. But we 
 would n't let him beat himself out for to-morrow." 
 
 ♦'How is 'Life?" 
 
 "Hearty as would any way be consistent — with one- 
 leggedness. He 'd never 'a got back, we all know, if you 
 hadn't gone after him." It was a young man's voica 
 that spoke these last sentences, and it grew tender at tte 
 end. . 
 
 " Ton 're to trim the cake," began one of the young 
 ^rls again, crowding up. " She says nobody else i;an. 
 Nobody else ever can. And " — with a little more myB. 
 tery — "there's the veil to fix. She says you're usea 
 
i\'?.'OK<>s'i;^ 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE-S LIFE. 37 
 
 to wedJ'n's, and know about veils ; and you was down 
 to Lawrence at Lorany's. And she wants things in reai 
 ttyle. She 's dreadful pudjichy, Emma Jane is ; she 
 won't have anything without it's exactly right." 
 
 The plain face was full of beaming sympathy and 
 readiness ; the stiff-looking spinster-woman, with the 
 " grass in the eaves of her bonnet," — grass grown also 
 over many an old hope in her own life, may be, — was 
 here in the midst of young joy and busy interest, making 
 them all her own ; had come on purpose, looked for and 
 hailed as the one without whom nothing could ever be 
 done, — more tenderly yet, as one but for whom some 
 brave life and brother love would have gone down. In 
 the midst of it all she had had ear and answer, to the very 
 last, for the stranger she had comforted on her way. 
 What difference did it make whether she wore an old 
 bonnet with green grass in it, or a round hat with a gay 
 feather ? — whether she were fifteen or forty-five, but for 
 the good she had had tim.e to do? — whether Lorany's 
 wedding down at Lawrence had been really a stylish fes- 
 tival or no? There was a beauty here which verily 
 ehone out through all ; and such a life should have no 
 time to be tempted. 
 
 The engine panted, and the train sped on. She never 
 met her fellow-traveller again, but these things Leslie 
 Goldthwaite had learned from her, — these things she 
 laid by silently in her heart. And the woman in the 
 gray bonnet never knew the half that she had done. 
 
 After taking one through wildernesses of beauty, after 
 whirling one past nooks where one could gladly linger 
 trhole summers, it is strange at what commonplace aii« 
 
158 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE. 
 
 graceless termini these railroads contrive to land one. 
 Lovely Wells River, wliere the road makes its sharp 
 angle, and runs back again until it strikes out eastward 
 through the valley of the Ammonoosuc, — where the 
 waters leap to each other, and the hills bend round in 
 majestic greeting, — where our young party cried out, in 
 an ignorance at once blessed and pathetic, " O, if Little- 
 ton should only be like this, or if we could stop here ! " 
 — yet where one cannot stop, because here there is no 
 regular stage connection, and nothing else to be found, 
 very probably, that vravellers might want, save the out- 
 door glory, — Wells Eiver and Woodville were left be- 
 hind, lying in the evening stillness of June, — in the 
 grand and beautiful disregard of things greater than the 
 Vi'orld is rushing by to seek, — and for an hour more 
 they threaded through fair valley sweeps and reaches, 
 past solitary hillside clearings, and detached farms, and 
 the most primitive of mountain hamlets, where the limit 
 and sparseness of neighborhood drew forth from a gen 
 tleman sitting behind tliem — come, doubtless, from some 
 suburban home, where numberless household wants kept 
 horse and wagon perpetually on the way for city or vil- 
 lage — the suggestive query, "I wonder what they do 
 here when they 're out of saleratus ? " This brought 
 them up, as against a dead wall of dreariness and disap- 
 pointment, at the Littleton station. It had been managed 
 as it always is ; the train had turned most ingeniously 
 into a corner whence there was scarcely an outlook upon 
 anything of all the magnificence that must yet be lying 
 close about them ; and here was only a tolerably well- 
 populated country town, filled up to just the point thai 
 
A SUM.MEK IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 39 
 
 excludes the picturesque and does not attain tc the 
 highly civilized. And into the heart of this they were to 
 be borne, and to be shut up there this summer night, 
 •v^th the full moon ■flooding mountain and river, and the 
 woods whispering up their peace to heaven. 
 
 It was bad enough, but worse came. The hotel coach 
 was waiting, and they hastened to secure their seats, giv- 
 ing their checks to the driver, who disappeared with a 
 handful of these and others, leaving his horses with the 
 reins tied to the dash-board, and a boy ten years old 
 upon the box. 
 
 There were heads out anxiously at either side, be- 
 tween concern for safety of body and of property. Mrs. 
 Linceford looked uneasily toward the confiised group 
 upon the platform, from among whom luggage began to 
 be drawn out in a fashion regardless of covers and 
 comers. The large russet trunk with the black H, — 
 the two luien-cased ones with " Hadden " in fuU, — the 
 two square bonnet-boxes, — these, one by one, were 
 dragged and whii'led toward the vehicle and jerked upon 
 the rack ; but the " ark," as they called Mrs. Lince- 
 ford's huge light French box, and the one precious re- 
 ceptacle that held all Leslie's pretty outfit, where were 
 these ? 
 
 " Those are not all, driver ! There is a high black 
 French trunk, and a russet leather one." 
 
 " Got all you give me checks for, — seb'm pieces " ; 
 Rnd he pointed to two strange articles of luggage waiting 
 their turn to be lifted up, — a long, old-feshioned gray 
 hair trunk, with letters in brass nails upon the lid, and 
 ts antiquated a carpet-bag. strapped and padlorki^d acrosfl 
 
10 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITES LIFE. 
 
 the mouth, suggestive in size and fashion of the United 
 States mail. 
 
 " Never saw them before in my life 1 There 's some 
 dreadful mistake ! What can have become of ours ? " 
 
 " Can't say, ma'am, I 'm sure. Don't often happen. 
 But them was your checks." 
 
 Mrs. Linceford leaned back for an instant in a breath- 
 less despair. " I must get out and see." 
 
 " If you please, ma'am. But 't ain't no use. The things 
 b all cleared off." Then, stooping to examine the trunk, 
 and turning over the bag, " Queer, too. These things is 
 chalked all right for Littleton. Must ha' been a mistake 
 with the checks, and somebody changed their minds on 
 the way, — Plymouth, most likely, — and stopped with 
 the wrong baggage. Would n't worry, ma'am ; it s as 
 bad for one is for t' other, any how, and they '11 be along 
 to-morrow, no kind o' doubt. Strays allers turns up on 
 this here road. No danger about that. I '11 see to bav- 
 in' these 'ere stowed away in the baggage-room." And 
 ghouldering the bag, he seized the trunk by the handle 
 and hauled it along over the rough embankment and up 
 the steps, flaying one side as he went. 
 
 " But, dear me 1 what am I to do ? " said Mrs. Lince- 
 ford, piteously. " Everything in it that 1 want to- 
 night, — my dressing-box and my wrappers and my air- 
 cushion ; they '11 be sure not to have any bolsters on 
 the beds, and only one feather in each corner of the 
 pillows 1 " 
 
 But this was only the first surprise of annoyance. She 
 i»ecollected herself on the instant, and leaned back again, 
 laying nothing more. She had no idea of amusing hei 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 41 
 
 unknown stage-companions at any length with her fine- 
 lady miseries. Only, just before they reached the hotel, 
 she added low to Jeannie, out of the unbroken train of 
 her own private lamentation, " And my rose-glycerine I 
 After all this dust and heat 1 I feel parched to a mum- 
 my, and I shall be an object to behold ! " 
 
 Leslie sat upon her right hand. She leaned closer, 
 and said quickly, glad of the little power to comfort, " I 
 have some rose-glycerine here in my bag." 
 
 Mrs. Linceford looked round at her; her face was 
 really bright. As if she had not lost her one trunk 
 also ! " You are a phcenix of a travelling-companion, 
 jrou young thing ! " the lady thought, and felt suddenly 
 ashamed of her own unwonted discomfiture. 
 
 Half an hour afterward Leslie Goldthwaite flitted across 
 the passage between the two rooms they had secured for 
 their party, with a bottle in her hand and a pair of pillows 
 over her arm. " Ours is a double-bedded room, too, Mrs. 
 Linceford, and neither Elinor nor I care for more than one 
 pillow. And here is the rose-glycerine." 
 
 These essential comforts, and the instinct of good-breed- 
 ing, brought the grace and the smile back fully to Mrs. 
 Linceford's face. More than that, she felt a gratefulness, 
 and the contagion and emulation of cheerful patience under 
 a common misfortune. She bent over and kissed Leslie 
 Bs she took the bottle from her hand. " You 're a dear 
 little sunbeam," she said. " We '11 send an imperative 
 message down the line, and have all our own traps again 
 to-morrow." 
 
 The collar that Elinor Hadden had lent Leslie was not 
 rery becoming, the sleeves had enormous wristbands, and 
 
42 A SUMMFB m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 were made for double sleeve-buttons, while lier own were 
 single ; moreover, the brown silk net, which she had sup- 
 posed thoroughly trustworthy, had given way all at once 
 into a great hole under the waterfall, and the soft hair 
 would fret itself through and threaten to stray untidily. 
 She had two such pretty nets in reserve in her missing 
 t''unk, and she did hate so to be in any way coming to 
 pieces I Yet there was somehow a feeling that repaid it 
 all, and even quieted the real anxiety as to the final 
 " turning up " of their fugitive property, — not a mere 
 self-complacence, hardly a self-complacence at all, but a 
 half-surprised gladness, that had something thankful in it. 
 If she might not be all leaves, perhaps, after all ! If she 
 really could, even in some sligltt tiling, care most for the 
 life and spirit underneatli, to keep this sweet and pleas- 
 ant, and the fruit of it a daily good, and not a bitterness, 
 — if she could begin, by holding lierself undisturbed, 
 though obliged to wear a collar that stood up behind and 
 turned over in front with those lappet comers she had 
 always thought so ugly, — yes, even though the water- 
 jail should leak out and ripple over stubbornly, — though 
 these things must go on for twenty-four hours at least, 
 and these twenty-four hours be spent unwillingly in a 
 dull country tavern, where the windows looked out from 
 one side into a village street, and from the other into 
 stable and clothes yards! There would be something 
 for her to do,— -to keep bright and help to keep the 
 others bright. There was a hope in it; the life waa 
 more than raiment; it was better worth while than to 
 have only got on the nice round collar and dainty cuffa 
 tnat fitted and suited her, or even the little bead net that 
 
A SCMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTIIWAITE'S LIFE. 43 
 
 came 0T?er in a Marie Stuart point so prettily between 
 the small ci imped puffs of her hair. 
 
 A little matter, nothing to be self-applauding about, — 
 only a straw ; but — if it showed the possible way of the 
 wind, the motive power that might be courted to set 
 through her life, taking her out of the trade-currents of 
 vanity? Might she have it in her, after all? Might 
 she even be able to come, if need be, to the strength of 
 mind for wearing an old gray straw bonnet, and bear- 
 ing to be forty years old, and helping to adorn the 
 young and beautiful for looks that never — just so — 
 should be bent again on her? 
 
 Leshe Goldthwaite had read of martyr and hero suf- 
 ferance all her life, as she had looked upon her poor, 
 one-eyed fellow-traveller to-day; the pang of sympathy 
 had always been, — " These things have been borne, are 
 being borne, in the world ; how much of the least of 
 them could I endure, — I, looking for even the little 
 things of life to be made smooth?" It depended, she 
 began faintly and afar off to see, upon where the true 
 fife lay, — how far behind the mere outer toverin^ ■vi- 
 tality' withdrew itself 
 
44 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFK. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Up - - up — np, — from glory to glory ' 
 This was what it seemed to Leslie Goldthwaite, 
 riding, that golden Juno morning, over the road that 
 threaded along, always climbing, the chain of hills that 
 could be climbed, into the nearer and nearer presence oi 
 those mountain majesties, penetrating farther and farther 
 into the grand solitudes sentinelled forever by their in- 
 accessible pride. 
 
 Mrs. Linccford had grown impatient ; she had declared 
 it impossible, when the splendid sunshine of that next day 
 challenged them forth out of their dull sojourn, to remain 
 there twenty-four hours longer, waiting for anything. 
 Trunks or none, she would go on, and wait at Jefferson, 
 at least, where there was something to console one. All 
 ^lossible precaution was taken ; all possible promises were 
 made; the luggage should be sent on next day, — per- 
 haps that very night ; wagons were going and returning 
 often now; there would be no fiirther trouble, they 
 might rest assured. The hotel-keeper bad a "capita, 
 team," — his very best, — at their instant service, if 
 they chose to go on this morning ; it could be at the 
 door in twenty minutes. So it was chartered, and or- 
 dered round, — an open mountain wagon, with four 
 horses; their remaining luggage was secured upon it. 
 and they themselves took their seats, gayly. 
 
 " Who cares for trunks or boxes now ? " Leslie cried 
 out in joyousness, catching the first, preparatory glimjis* 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 45 
 
 of grandeur, when their road, that wound for a time 
 through the low, wet valley-lands, began to ascend a 
 rugged hillside, whence opened vistas that hinted some- 
 thing of the glory that was to come. All the morning 
 long, these wheeled about them, and smiled out in the 
 sunshine, or changed to grave, grand reticence under the 
 cloud-shadows, those shapes of might and beauty that 
 filled up earth and heaven. 
 
 Leslie grew silent, with the hours of over-full delight. 
 Thoughts thronged in upon her. All that had been 
 deepest and strongest in the little of life that she had 
 lived wakened and lifted again in such transcendent 
 presence. Only the high places of spirit can answer to 
 these high places of God in his creation. 
 
 Now and then, Jeannie and Elinor fell into their chat- 
 ter, about their summer plans, and pleasures, and dress ; 
 about New York, and the new house Mrs. Linceford 
 had taken in West Twenty-ninth Street, where they 
 were to visit her next winter, and participate for the first 
 time, under her matronizing, in city gayeties. Leslie 
 wondered how they could ; she only answered when ap- 
 pealed to ; she felt as if people were jogging her elbow, 
 and whispering distractions, in the midst of some noble 
 eloquence. 
 
 The woods had a word for her ; a question, and their 
 own sweet answer of help. The fair June leafage was 
 out in its young glory of vivid green ; it reminded her 
 of her talk with Cousin Delight. 
 
 " We do love leaves for their own sake ; trees, and 
 vines, and the very green grass, even." So she said to 
 herself, asking still for the perfect parable that should 
 solve and teach all. 
 
46 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 It came, •with the breath of wUd grape-vines, hidden 
 somewhere in the wayside thickets. "Under the leaf 
 Hes our tiny green blossom," it said ; " and its perfume 
 Is out on the air. Folded in the grass-blade is a feathery 
 bloom, of seed or grain ; and by and by the fields will be 
 all waving with it. Be sure that the blossom is under the 
 leaf." 
 
 Elinor Hadden's sweet child-face, always gentle and 
 good-humored, though visited little yet with the deep 
 touch of earnest thought, — smiling upon life as life 
 smiled upon her, — looked lovelier 'to Leslie as this 
 whisper made itself heard in her heart ; and it was with 
 a sweeter patience and a more believing kindliness that 
 she answered, and tried to enter into, her next merry 
 words. 
 
 There was something diflFerent about Jeannie. She 
 was older ; there was a kind of hard determination some- 
 times with her, in turning from suggestions of graver 
 things ; the child-unconsciousness was no longer there ; 
 something restless, now and then defiant, had taken its 
 place ; she had caught a sound of the deeper voices, but 
 her soul would not yet turn to listen. She felt the blos- 
 som of life yearning under the leaf; but she bent the 
 green beauty heedfiilly above it, and made believe it 
 was not there. 
 
 Looking into herself and about her with asking eyes, 
 Leslie had learned something already by which she ap- 
 prehended these things of others. Heretofore, her two 
 friends had seemed to her alike, — able, both of them, to 
 take life innocently and carelessly as it came ; she begai 
 now to feel a difference. 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITt'S LIFE. 47 
 
 Her eyes were bent away off toward the FranJonia 
 hills, when Mrs. Linceford leaned round to look in them, 
 and spoke, in the tone her voice had begun to take to- 
 ward her. She felt one of her strong likings — her 
 immense fancies, as she called them, which were really 
 warm sympathies of the best of her with the best she 
 found in the world — for Leslie Goldthwaite. 
 
 " It seems to me you are a girai/ sunbeam this morn- 
 ing," she said, in her winning way. " What kind ol 
 thoughts are going out so far? What is it all about?" 
 
 A verse of the Psalms was ringing itself in Leslie's 
 mind ; had been there, under all the other vague mus- 
 ings and chance suggestions for many minutes of her 
 silence. But she would not have spoken it — she cotUd 
 not — for aU the world. She gave the lady one of the 
 chance suggestions instead. " I have been looking down 
 into that lovely boUow ; it seems like a children's party, 
 with all the grave grown folks looking on." 
 
 " Childhood and grown-up-hood ; not a bad simile.' 
 
 It was not indeed. It was a wild basin, within a group 
 of the lesser hills close by ; fidl of little feathery birches, 
 that twinkled and played in the light breeze and gorgeous, 
 sunshine slanting in upon them between the slopes that 
 lay in shadow above, — slopes clothed vnth ranks of dark 
 Dines and cedars and hemlocks, looking down seriously, 
 vet with a sort of protecting tenderness, upon the shim- 
 mer and frolic they seemed to have chmbed up out of. 
 Those which stood in the half-way shadow were gravest. 
 Hoar old stems upon the very tops were touched with the 
 Bel&an^e glory that lavished itself oelow. This also was 
 no less a true similitude. 
 
48 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 «' Know ye not this parable? " the Master said. " Hoi» 
 then shall ye know all parables ? " Verily, they lie about 
 us by the wayside, and the whole earth is vocal with the 
 wisdom of the Lord. 
 
 I cannot go with our party step by step ; I have a sum- 
 mer to spend with them. They came to Jefferson at noon, 
 and sat themselves down in the solemn high court and 
 council of the mountain kings. First, they must have 
 rooms. In the very face of majesty they must settle 
 cheir traps. 
 
 " You are lucky in coming in for one vacancy, made 
 to-day," the proprietor said, throwing open a door that 
 showed them a commodious second-floor corner-room, 
 looking each way with broad windows upon the circle of 
 glory, from Adams to Lafayette. A wide balcony ran 
 along the southern side against the window which ga>re 
 that aspect. There were two beds here, and two at least 
 of the party must be content to occupy. Mrs. Lincefbrd, 
 of course ; and it was settled that Jeannie should share it 
 with her. 
 
 Up stairs, again, was choice of two rooms, — one flight 
 pr two. But the first looked out westward, where was 
 comparatively little of what they had come for. Higher 
 up, they could have the same outlook that the others had ; 
 a slanting ceiling opened with dormer window fiiU upon 
 the grandeur of Washington, and a second faced south- 
 ward to where beautiful blue, dreamy Lafayette lay soft 
 against the tender heaven. 
 
 " O", let us have this 1 " said Leslie, eagerly. " W» 
 Jon't mind stairs." And so it was settled. 
 " Only two days here ? " they began to say, vmen luej 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 49 
 
 gathered in Mrs. Linceford's room at nearly tea-time, 
 after a rest and freshening of their toilets. 
 
 " We might stay longer," Mrs. Linceford answered. 
 " But the rooms are taken for us at Outledge, and one 
 can't settle and unpack, when it 's only a lingering from 
 day to day. All there is here one sees from the win- 
 dows. A great deal, to be sure ; but it 's all there at 
 the first glance. We '11 see how we feel on Friday." 
 
 " The Thoresbys are here, Augusta. I saw Ginevra 
 on the balcony just now. They seem to have a large 
 party with them. And I 'm sure I heard them talk of 
 a hop to-night. If your trunks would only come ! " 
 
 " They could not in time. They can only come in the 
 train that reaches Littleton at six." 
 
 " But you '11 go in, won't you ? 'T is n't likely they 
 dress much here, — though Ginevra Thoresby always 
 dresses. Elinor and I could just put on our blue grena- 
 dines, and you've got plenty of things in your other 
 boxes. One of your shawls is all you want, and we can 
 lend Leslie something." 
 
 " I 've only my thick travelling-boots," said Leslie ; 
 "and I shouldn't feel fit without a thorough dressing. 
 It won't matter the first night, will it ? " 
 
 " Leslie Goldthwaite, you 're getting slow ! Augusta ! " 
 
 " As true as I live, there is old Marmaduke Wharne ! " 
 
 " Let Augusta alone for not noticing a question till 
 she chooses to answer it," said Jeannie Hadden, laugh- 
 ing. " And who, pray, is Marmaduke Wharne ? With 
 a name like that, if you did n't say ' old,' I should make 
 np my mind to a real hero, right out of a book." 
 
 " He 's an original. And — yes — he is a hero, — out 
 
 3 D 
 
50 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 of a book, too, in his way. I met him at CatskjU last 
 summer. He stayed there the whole season, till they 
 shnt the house up and drove him down the mountain. 
 Other people came and went, took a look, and ran away ; 
 but he was a fixture. He says he always does so, — 
 goes off somewhere and ' finds an Ararat,' and there 
 drifts up and sticks fast. In the winter he 's in New 
 York ; but that 's a needle in a haystack. I never heard 
 of him till I found him at Catskill. He 's an English- 
 man, and they say had more to his name once. It was 
 Whame-cliffe, or Wharne-leigh, or something, and there 'a 
 a baronetcy in the family. I don't doubt, myself, that it 's 
 his, and that a part of his oddity has been to drop it. He 
 was a poor preacher, years ago ; and then, of a sudden, 
 he went out to England, and came back with plenty ol 
 money, and since then he 's been an apostle and mission- 
 ary among the poor. That 's his winter work ; the sum- 
 mers, as I said, he spends in the hills. Most people are 
 half afraid of him ; for he 's one you '11 get the blunt 
 truth from, if you never got it before. But come, 
 there 's the gong, — ugh I how they batter it ! — and 
 we must get through tea, and out upon the balcony, to 
 see the sunset and the ' purple light.' There 's no time 
 now, girls, for blue grenadines ; and it 's always vulgar 
 to come out in a hurry with dress in a strange place." 
 And Mrs. Linceford gave a last touch to her hair, 
 straightened the things on her dressing-table, shut down 
 the lid of a box, and led the way from the room. 
 
 Out upon the balcony they watched the long, golden 
 going-down of the sun, and the creeping shadows, and 
 the purple half-light, and the after-smile upon the cresti 
 
A SUMMER IK LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 51 
 
 And then the heaven gathered itself in its night stilhiess, 
 and the mountains were grand in the soft gloom, untfl 
 the full moon came up over Washington. 
 
 There had been a few words of recognition with the 
 Thoresbj party, and then our little group had betaken 
 itself to the eastern end of the piazza. After a while, 
 one by one, the others strayed away, and they were left 
 almost alone. There was a gathering and a sound of 
 voices about the drawing-room, and presently came the 
 tones of the piano, struck merrily. They jarred, some- 
 how, too ; for the ringing, thrilling notes of a horn, 
 blown below, had just gone down the diminishing echoes 
 from cliff to chff, and died into a listening silence, away 
 over, one could not tell where beyond the mysterious 
 ramparts. 
 
 " It 's getting cold," said Jeannie, impatiently. " I 
 think we 've stayed here long enough. Augusta, dow7 
 yon mean to get a proper shawl, and put some sort of 
 lace thing on your head, and come in with us for a look, 
 at least, at the hop ? Come, Nell ; come, Leslie ; you 
 might as well be at home as in a place like this, if you 're 
 only going to mope." 
 
 " It seems to me," said Leslie, more to herself than to 
 Jeannie, looking over upon the curves and ridges and 
 ravines of Mount Washington, showing vast and solemn 
 under the climbing moon, " as if we had got into a cathe- 
 dral I" 
 
 " And the ' great nerve ' was being touched ! Well, 
 — that don't make me shiver. Besides, I didn't come 
 here to shiver. I 've come to have a right good time j 
 •nd to look at the mountains — as much as is reasonable.'' 
 
52 A SUMMER IN LKSLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 
 
 It was a pretty good definition of what Jeannie Hai 
 den thought she had come into the world for. Thera 
 was subtle indication in it, also, that the shadow of some 
 doubt had not failed to touch her either, and that this 
 with her was less a careless instinct than a resolved 
 conclusion. 
 
 Elinor, in her happy good-humor, was ready for either 
 thing ; to stay in the night-splendor longer, or to go in. 
 It ended in their going in. Outside, the moon wheeled 
 on in her long southerly circuit, the stars trembled in 
 their infinite depths, and the mountains abided in aw- 
 ful might. Within was a piano-tinkle of gay music, 
 and demi-toilette, and demi-festival, — the poor, abridged 
 reproduction of city revelry in the inadequate par- 
 lor of an unpretending mountain-house, on a three-ply 
 carpet. 
 
 Marmaduke Wharne came and looked in at the door- 
 way. Mrs. Linceford rose from her seat upon the sofa 
 close by, and gave him courteous greeting. " The sea- 
 son has begun early, and you seem likely to have a pleas- 
 ant summer here," she said, with the half-considered 
 meaning of a common fashion of speech. 
 
 " No, madam ! " answered Marmaduke Wharne, out 
 v,f his real thought, with a blunt emphasis. 
 
 "You think not?" said Mrs. Linceford, suavely, in a 
 quiet amusement. " It looks rather like it to-night." 
 
 " This? — It's no use for people to bring their bodies 
 to the mountains, if they can't bring souls in them I " 
 And Marmaduke Wharne turned on his heel, and, with- 
 out further courtesy, strode away. 
 
 " What an old GrimgrifSnhoof 1 " cried Jeannie 
 
A SUMMER Dn LESLIE GOIJ)TffWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 63 
 
 under her breath ; and Elinor laughed her little musical 
 laugh of Am. 
 
 Mrs. Linceford drew up her shawl, and sat down 
 again, the remnant of a well-bred smile upon her face, 
 Leslie Goldthwaite rather wished old Marmaduke 
 Whame would come back again and say more. But 
 dus first glimpse of him was all they got tc-night. 
 
64 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " Blown crystal clear by Freedom's northern wind." 
 
 Leslie said the last line of Whittier's glorious moan 
 tain sonnet, low, to herself, standing on the balconj 
 again that next morning, in the cold, clear breeze ; the 
 magnificent lines of the great earth-masses rearing them- 
 selves before her sharply against a cloudless morning sky, 
 defining and revealing themselves anew. 
 
 " Freedom's northern wind will take all the wave out 
 of your hair, and give you a red nose 1 " said Jeannie, 
 coming round from her room, and upon Leslie unaware. 
 
 Well, Jeannie was a pretty thing to look at, in her deli- 
 cate blue cambric morning dress, gracefully braided with 
 white, with the fresh rose of recent sleep in her young 
 cheeks, and the gladness of young life in her dark eyes. 
 One might look away from the mountains to look at her ; 
 for, after all, the human beauty is the highest. Only, it 
 must express high things, or at last one turns aside. 
 
 " And there comes Marmaduke ; he 's worse than the 
 north wind. I can't stay to be 'blown clear' by him." 
 And Jeannie, in high, merry good-humor, flitted oflF. 
 It is easy to be merry and good-humored when one's 
 new dress fits exquisitely, and one's hair has n't been 
 fractious in the doing up. 
 
 Leslie had never, apparently to herself, cared less, 
 somehow, for self and little vanities ; it seemed as if it 
 were going to be quite easy for her, now and henceforth, 
 to care most for the nobler things of life. The great 
 mountain-enthusiasm had seized her for the first time, 
 and swept away before it all meaner thought ; and, be- 
 sides, her trunk had been left behind, and she had noth- 
 mg to put herself into but her plain brown travelling 
 dress. 
 
A SUMMEE m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 66 
 
 She let the wind play with the pufiFs of her hair, and 
 lend some little light locks astray about her forehead. 
 She wrapped her shawl around her,' and went and sat 
 where she had sat the night before, at the eastern end of 
 the balcony, her face toward the morning hills, as it had 
 been toward the evening radiance and purple shade. 
 Marmaduke Wharne was moving up and down, stopping 
 a little short of her when he turned, keeping his own soli- 
 tude as she kept hers. Faces and figures glanced out at 
 the hall-door for an instant each, and the keen salute of 
 the north-wind sent them invariably in again. Nobody 
 wanted to go with a red nose or tossed hair to the break- 
 fast-table ; and breakfast was almost ready. But pres- 
 ently Mrs. Linceford came, and, seeing Mr. Wharne, 
 who always interested and amused her, she ventured 
 forth, bidding him good morning. 
 
 " Good morning, madam. It is a good morning." 
 
 " A little sharp, is n't it ? " she said, shrugging her 
 shoulders together, irresolute about further lingering. 
 "Ah, Leslie? Let me introduce you to the Reverend 
 Mr. Wharne. My young friend and travelling compan- 
 ion. Miss Leslie Goldthwaite, Mr. Wharne. Have you 
 two driven everybody else off, or is it the nipping air ? " 
 
 " I think it is either that they have not said their pray- 
 ers this morning, or that they don't know their daily 
 bread when they see it. They think it is only saleratus 
 cakes and maple molasses." 
 
 " As cross this morning as last night ? " the lady ques- 
 tioned playftiUy. 
 
 " Not cross at all, Mrs. Linceford. Only jarred upon 
 tontinually by these people we have here just now. It 
 
50 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 was different two years ago. But Jefferson is getting to 
 be too well known. The mountain places are being 
 spoiled, one after another." 
 
 " People will come. You can't help that." 
 
 " Yes, they will come, and frivel about the gates, with- 
 out ever once entering in. ' Who shall ascend into the 
 hill of the Lord ? And who shall stand in his holy 
 place ? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart ; 
 who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity.' " 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite's face quickened and glowed ; they 
 were the psalm-lines that had haunted her thought yes- 
 terday, among the opening visions of the hill-country. 
 Marmaduke Wharne bent his keen eyes upon her, from 
 under their gray brows, noting her narrowly. She wist 
 not that she was noted, or that her face shone. 
 
 "One soul hei-e, at least!" was what the stern old 
 man said to himself in that moment. 
 
 He was cynical and intolerant here among the moun- 
 tains, where he felt the holy places desecrated, and the 
 gift of God unheeded. In the haunts of city misery 
 and vice, — misery and vice shut in upon itself, with no 
 broad outlook to the heavens, — he was tender, with 
 the love of Christ himself. 
 
 " ' My house shall be called the house of prayer ; but 
 these have made it a den of thieves.' It is true not alone 
 of the temples built with hands." 
 
 "Is that fair? How do you hnow, Mr. Wharne?' 
 The sudden, impetuous questions come from Leslie Gold 
 ihwaite. 
 
 " I see — what I see." 
 
 " The whole ? " said Leslie, more restrainedly. Sh« 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 67 
 
 remembered her respect for age and office. Yet she felt 
 iiorely tempted, shy, proud girl as she was, to take uj 
 cudgels for her friends, at least. Mr. Whame liked hei 
 the better for that. 
 
 " They turn away from this, with five words, — th« 
 toll of custom, — or half a look, when the wind is north ; 
 and they go in to what you saw last night." 
 
 " After all, is n't it jast enjoyment, either way? May 
 n't one be as selfish as the other ? People were kind, 
 and bright, and pleasant with each other last night. Is 
 that a bad thing ? " 
 
 "No, litt,le girl, it is not." And Marmaduke Whame 
 came nearer to Leslie, and looked at her with a gentle 
 look that was wonderfully beautiful upon his stem gray 
 face. " Only, I would have a kindness that should go 
 deep, — coming from a depth. There are two things for 
 live men and women to do. To receive, from God ; and 
 to give out, to their fellows. One cannot be done with- 
 out the other. No fruit, without the drinking of the 
 sunshine. No true tasting of the sunshine that is not 
 gathering itself toward the ripening of fruit." 
 
 Here it was again ; more teaching to the selfsame 
 point, — as we always do get it, with a seeming strange- 
 ness, whether it be for mind only, or for soul. You never 
 heard of a new name, or tact in history, that did not come 
 out again presently in some fresh or further mention or 
 allusion. It is the tender training of Him before whom 
 our life is of so great value. 
 
 At this moment, the gong sounded again ; saleratuf 
 cakes and maple molasses were reai y and they all 
 iront in. 
 
58 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLL^HWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Leslie saw Imogen Thoresby change seats with her 
 mother, because the draft from the door was less in her 
 place ; and take the pale top-cake from the plate, leaving 
 a brown one for the mother. Everybody likes brown 
 cakes best ; and it was very unbecoming to sit opposite a 
 great, unshaded window, to say nothing of the draft. 
 Surely a little blossom peeped out here from under the 
 Jeaf. Leslie thought Imogen Thoresby might be forgiven 
 for having done her curls so elaborately, and put on such 
 an elegant wrapper ; even for having ventured only a 
 half-look out at the balcony door, when she found the 
 wind was north. The parable was already teaching her 
 both ways. 
 
 I do not mean to preach upon every page. I have 
 begun by trying to tell you how a great influencing 
 thought was given into Leslie Goldthwaite's life, and 
 began to unravel for her perplexing questions that had 
 troubled her, — questions that come, I think, to many a 
 young girl just entering upon the world, as they came to 
 her ; — how, in the simple history of her summer among 
 the mountains, a great deal solved itself and grew clear. 
 I would like to succeed in making you divine this, as yon 
 follow out the simple history itself. 
 
 " Just in time I " cried Jeannie Hadden, running up 
 into Leslie's room at mid-afternoon that day. " There 'a 
 a stage over from Littleton, and your trunk is being 
 brought up this minute." 
 
 " And the hair-trunk and the mail-bag came on, too, 
 after all, and the queerest people with them I " added 
 Elinor, entering behind her. 
 
 They both stood back and were silent, as a man came 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 5Sj 
 
 heavily along the passage with the trunk upon his shoulder. 
 He set it down and unfastened the straps, and in a minute 
 more was gone, and Leslie had the lid open. All there, 
 just as it had been in her own room at home three days 
 ago. Her face brightened, seeing her little treasures again. 
 She had borne it well ; she had been able to enjoy with- 
 out them ; but she was very glad that they were come. 
 
 " It 's nice that dinner is at lunch-time here, and that 
 nobody dresses until now. Make haste, and get on some- 
 thing pretty. Augusta won't let us get out organdies, 
 but we 're determined on the blue grenadines. It 'a 
 awfully hot, — hot enough for anything. Do your hair 
 over the high rats, just for once." 
 
 " I always get into such a fass with them, and I can't 
 bear to waste the time. How will this do?" Leslie 
 unpinned from its cambric cover a gray iron barege, 
 with a narrow pufBng round the hem of the full skirt 
 and the little pointed bertha cape. With it lay bright 
 cherry ribbons for the neck and hair. 
 
 " Lovely ! Make haste and come down to our room." 
 And having to dress herself, Jeannie ran off again, and 
 Ehnor shut the door. 
 
 It was nice to have on everything fresh ; to have got 
 her feet into resetted slippers instead of heavy balmoral 
 boots ; to feel the lightness and grace of her own move- 
 ment as she went down stairs and along the halls in 
 floating folds of delicate barege, after wearing the close, 
 uncomfortable travelling-dress, with the sense of dust 
 and fatigue that clung about it; to have a little flutter 
 of bright ribbon in her hair, that she knew was, aa 
 Elinor said "the prettiest part of ner." It was plea»- 
 
60 A ST3MMEE IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 ant to see Mrs. Linceford look pleased, as she opened 
 her door to her, and to have her say, " You always do 
 get on exactly the right thing ! " There was a fresh feel- 
 ing of pleasure even in looking over at Washington, sun- 
 lighted and shadowed in his miles of heights and depths, 
 as she sat by the cool east window, feeling quite hei 
 dainty self again. Dress is but the outside thing, as 
 beauty is but "skin deep"; but there is a deal of in- 
 evitable skin-sensation, pleasurable or uncomfortable, and 
 Leslie had a good right to be thoroughly comfortable now. 
 
 The blinds to the balcony window were closed ; that led 
 to a funny little episode presently, — an odd commentary 
 on the soul-and-body question, as it had come up to them 
 in graver fashion. 
 
 Outside, to two chairs just under the window, came a 
 couple newly arrived, — the identical proprietors of the 
 exchanged luggage. It was an elderly countryman, and 
 his home-bred, matter-of-fact wife. They too had had 
 their privations and anxieties, and the outset of their evi- 
 dently unusual travels had been marred in its pleasure. 
 In plain truth, the good woman was manifestly soured by 
 her experience. 
 
 Right square before the blinds she turned her back, un- 
 conscious of the audience within, lifted her elbows, like 
 clothes-poles, to raise her draperies, and settled herself 
 with a dissatisfied flounce, that expressed beforehand 
 what she was about to put in words. " For my part,' 
 she announced, deliberately, " I think the White Moun- 
 tains is a clear — hummux ! " 
 
 " Good large hummocks, any way," returned her coiih 
 panion. 
 
A SUMMEU IN LESLIE GOLDTHWATTE'S LIFE. 61 
 
 •' You kilow what I mean. 'T ain't worth comin for, 
 Losin' baggage, an' everything. We 'd enough sight 
 better ha' stayed at Plymouth. An' if it had n't a ben for 
 your dunderheadedness, givin' up the checks an' never 
 Btoppin' to see what was comin' of 'em, trunks or hen- 
 coops, we might. There 's somethin' to see, there. That 
 little bridge leadin' over to the swings and seats across the 
 river was real pretty and pleasant. And the cars comin' 
 in an' startin' ofiF, right at the back door, made it lively. 
 I alwers did like to see passin'." 
 
 The attitudes inside the blinds were something, at this 
 moment. Mrs. Linceford, in a spasm of suppressed laugh- 
 ter herself, held her handkerchief to her lips with one 
 hand, and motioned peremptory silence to the girls with 
 the other. Jeannie was noiselessly clapping her hands, 
 and dancing from one toe to the other with delight. 
 Leslie and Elinor squeezed each other's fingers lightly, 
 and leaned forward together, their faces brimming over 
 with fiin ; and the former whispered with emphatic pan- 
 tomime to Mrs. Linceford, "^ Mr. Wharne were only 
 here 1 " 
 
 " You Ve been worried," said the man. " And you 've 
 ben comin' up to 'em gradooal. You don't take 'em in. 
 If one of these 'ere hills was set out in our fields to home, 
 you'd think it was something more than a hummock, I 
 
 " Well, why ain't they, then ? It 's the best way to put 
 thmgs where you can see 'em to an advantage. They ?re 
 all in the way of each other here, and don't show for noth- 
 mg to speak of. Worried 1 I guess I hev ben I I shan't 
 git over it till I 've got home an' ben settled down a we«jlE. 
 
62 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 It's a mercy I've ever laid eyes agin on that bran-new 
 black alpacky I " 
 
 " Well, p'r'aps the folks felt wass that lost them stylish- 
 lookin' trunks. I '11 bet they had something more in 'em 
 than black alpackys." 
 
 " That don't comfort me none. I 've had mi/ tribu- 
 lation." 
 
 " Well, come, don't be grouty, Hannah. We 've got 
 through the wust of it, and if you ain't satisfied, why, 
 we '11 go back to Plyinouth again. I can stand it awhile, 
 I guess, if '< is four dollars a day." 
 
 He had evidently sat still a good while for him, honest 
 man ; and he got up with this, and began to pace up and 
 down, looking at the " hummocks," which signified greater 
 meanings to him than to his wife. 
 
 Mrs. Linceford came over and put the window down. 
 It was absolutely necessary to laugh now, however much 
 of further entertainment might be cut off. 
 
 Hannah jumped up, electrified, as the sash went down 
 behind her. 
 
 " John 1 John 1 There 's folks in there I " 
 
 " S'pose likely," said John, with quiet relish of amends. 
 " Wliat 's good for me 'ill do for them ! " 
 
A SCMUEU IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 68 
 
 »« /"^ RIMGRIFPINHOOF won't speak to you to- 
 vJ night," said Jeannie Hadden, after tea, upon the 
 balcony. 
 
 She was mistaken. There was something different, 
 Btill, in Leslie Goldthwaite's look, as she came out under 
 the sunset-light, from the looks that prevailed in the 
 Thoresby group when they too made their appearance. 
 The one moved self-fprgetfully, — her consciousness and 
 thought sent forth, not fluttering in her robes and rib- 
 bons ; with the others there was a little air and bustle, 
 as of people coming into an opera-box in presence of a 
 fall house. They said "Lovely!" and "Splendid!" of 
 course, — their little word of applause for the scenic 
 grandeur of mountain and heaven, and then the half 
 of them turned their backs upon it, and commenced talk- 
 ing together about whether waterfalls were really to be 
 given up or not, and of how people were going to look in 
 high-crowned bonnets. 
 
 Mrs, Linceford told the " hummux " story to Marma- 
 duke Whame. The old man laughed till the Thoresby 
 party turned to see. 
 
 " But I like one thing," he said. " The woman was 
 honest. Her ' black alpacky ' was most to her, and she 
 owned up to it." 
 
 The regular thing being done, outside, the company 
 4rifted back, as the shadows fell, to the parlor again. 
 Mrs. Linceford's party moved also, and drifted with the 
 
64 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 rest. Marmaduke Wharne, quite graciously, walked after 
 Tho Lancers was just forming. 
 
 " The bear is playing tame and amiable," whispered 
 Jeannie. " But he '11 eat you up, for all that. I would n't 
 trust him. He 's going to watch, to see how wicked yon '11 
 be." 
 
 " 1 shall let him see," replied Leslie, quietly. 
 
 "Miss Goldthwaite, you're for the dance to-night? 
 For the 'bright and kind and pleasant,' eh?" the "bear" 
 said, coming to her side within the room. 
 
 " If anybody asks me," answered Leslie, with brave 
 simplicity. "I like dancing — very much." 
 
 " I '11 find you a partner, then," said Mr. Whame. 
 
 She looked up, surprised ; but he was quite in earnest. 
 He walked across the room, and brought back with him 
 ■ Tad of thirteen or so, — well grown for his age, and 
 bright and manly-looking; but only a boy, and a little 
 shy and stiflF at first, as boys have to be for a while. 
 Leslie had seen him before, in the afternoon, rolhng the 
 balls through a solitary game of croquet ; and, afterward, 
 taking his tea by himself at the lower end of the table. 
 He had seemed to belong to nobody, and as yet hardly 
 to have got the " run " of the place. 
 
 " This is Master Thayne, Miss Leslie Goldthwaite, 
 and I think he would like to dance, if you please." 
 
 Master Thayne made a proper bow, and glanced up at 
 the young girl with a smile lurking bthmd the diffidence 
 in his face. Leslie smiled outright, and held out her 
 hand. 
 
 It was not a brilliant dSbut, perhaps. The H^ddent 
 had been appropriated by a couple of voutlw ip frock 
 
A SUMJIEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 66 
 
 eodts and orthodox kids, with a suspicion of moustaches ; 
 and one of the Thoresbys had a young captain of cavalry, 
 with gold bars on his shoulders. Elinor Hadden raisea 
 her pretty eyebrows, and put as much of a mock-miser- 
 able look into her happy little face as it could hold, when 
 she found her friend, so paired, at her right hand. 
 
 " It 's very good of you to stand up with me," said the 
 boy, simply. " It 's awful slow, not knowing anybody." 
 
 " Are you here alone ? " asked Leslie. 
 
 "Yes; there was nobody to come with me. Oliver 
 — my brother — will come by and by, and perhaps my 
 ancle and the rest of them, to meet me where I 'm to be, 
 down among the mountains. We 're all broken up this 
 summer, and I 'm to take care of myself." 
 
 " Then you don't stay here ? " 
 
 " No ; I only came this way to see what it was like. 
 I 've got a jolly place engaged for me, at Outledge." 
 
 " Outledge ? Why, we are going there I " 
 
 " Are you ? That 's — jolly 1 " repeated the boy, 
 pausing a second for a fresher or politer word, but unable 
 to supply a synonyme. 
 
 " I 'm glad you think so," answered Leslie, with her 
 genuine smile again. 
 
 The two had already made up their minds to be 
 friends. In fact, Master Thayne would hardly have ac- 
 quiesced in being led up for introduction to any other 
 young girl in the room. There had been something in 
 Leslie Goldthwaite's face that had looked kind and sis- 
 terly to him. He had no fear of a snub with her ; and 
 these things Mr. Wharne had read, in his behalf, as well. 
 
 " He 's a queer old fellow, that Mr. Wharne, is n'l 
 
66 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 he ? " pursued Master Thayne, after forwara and back, aa 
 he turned his partner to place. " But he 's the only one 
 that 's had anything to say to me, and I like him. I 've 
 been down to the old mill with him to-day. Those peo- 
 ple" — motioning slightly toward the other set, where 
 the Thoresbys were danaing — " were down there too. 
 You 'd ought to have seen them look ! Don't they hate 
 him, though ? " 
 
 " Hate him ? Why should they do that ? " 
 
 " O, I don't know. People feel each other out, I sup- 
 pose. And a word of his is as much as a whole preach 
 of anybody's else. He says a word now and then, and it 
 hits." 
 
 " Yes," responded Leslie, laughing. 
 
 " What did you do it for ? " whispered Elinor, in 
 hands across. 
 
 "I like him; he's got something to say," returned 
 Leslie. 
 
 " Augusta 's looking at you, like a hen after a sla-ay 
 chicken. She 's all but clucking now." 
 
 " Mr. Wharne will tell her." 
 
 But Mr. Wharne was not in the room. He came back 
 just as Leslie was making her way again, after th^ 
 dance, to Mrs. Linceford. 
 
 " Will you do a galop with me presently ? — if yon 
 don't get a better partner, I mean," said Master Thayne. 
 
 " That would n't be much of a promise," answered 
 Leslie, smiling. " I will, at any rate ; that is, if — afttfi 
 I 've spoken to Mrs. Linceford." 
 
 Mr. Wharne came up and said something to young 
 Thayne, just then ; and the latter turned eagerly to Le» 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 67 
 
 lie, " The telescope 's fixed, out on the balcony ; and 
 you can see Jupiter and three of his moons I We, must 
 make haste, before our moon 's up." 
 
 " Will you go and look, Mrs. Linceford ? " asked Mr. 
 Wharne of the lady, as Leslie reached her side. 
 
 They went with him, and Master Thayne followed. 
 Jeannie and Elinor and the Miss Thoresbys were doing 
 the inevitable promenade after the dance, — under diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 " Who is your young friend ? " inquired Mrs. Lince- 
 ford, with a shade of doubt in her whisper, as they came 
 out on the balcony. 
 
 "Master " Leslie began to introduce, but stopped. 
 
 The name, which she had not been quite certain of, es- 
 caped her. 
 
 "My name is Dakie Thayne," said the boy, with a 
 bow to the matron. 
 
 "Now, Mrs. Linceford, if you'll just sit here," said 
 Mr. Wharne, placing a chair. "I suppose I ought to 
 have come to you first ; but it 's all right," he added, in 
 a low tone, over her shoulder. " He 's a nice boy." 
 
 And Mrs. Linceford put her eye to the telescope. 
 " Dakie Thayne 1 It 's a queer name ; and yet it seems 
 as if I had heard it before," she said, looking away 
 through the mystic tube into space, and seeing Jupiter 
 with his moons, in a fair round picture framed expressly 
 to her eye ; yet sending a thought, at the same time, up 
 and down the lists of a mentaJ directory, trying to place 
 Dakie Thayne among people she had heard of. 
 
 " I '11 be responsible for the name," answered Marma 
 duke Wharne. 
 
68 A SmiMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 *' ' Dakie ' is a nickname, of course ; but they always 
 sail roe so, and I like it best," the boy was explaining to 
 Leslie, while they waited in the doorway. 
 
 Then her turn came. Leslie had never looked 
 through a telescope upon the stars before. She forgot 
 the galop, and the piano tinkled out its gayest notes ua- 
 tieard. " It seems like coming all the way back," she 
 3aid, when she moved away for Dakie Thayne. 
 
 Then they wheeled the telescope upon its pivot east- 
 ward, and met our own moon coming up, as if in a grand 
 jealousy, to assert herself within her small domain, and 
 put out faint, far satellites of lordlier planets. They 
 looked upon her mystic, glistening hill-tops, and down 
 ner awful craters ; and from these they seemed to drop 
 a little, as a bird might, and alight on the earth-moun- 
 tains, looming close at hand, with their huge, rough crests 
 and sides, and sheer escarpments white with nakedness ; 
 and so — got home again. Leslie, with her maps and 
 gazetteer, had done no travelling like this. 
 
 She would not have cared, if she had known, that Imo- 
 gen Thoresby was looking for her, within, to present, at his 
 own request, the cavalry captain. She did not know in 
 the least, absorbed in her pure enjoyment, that Marma- 
 duke Wharne was deliberately trying her, and confirming 
 his estimate of her, in these very things. 
 
 She danced her galop with Dakie Thayne, after she 
 went back. The cavalry captain was introduced, and 
 asked for it. " That was something," as Hans Andersen 
 would say; but "What a goose not to have managed 
 better!" was what Imogen Thoresby thought concernmg 
 it, as the gold bars turned themselves away. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 69 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite had taken what came to her, and 
 she had had an innocent, merry time ; she had heen glad 
 to be dressed nicely, and to look her best ; — but some- 
 how she had not thought of that much, after all ; the old 
 uncomfortableness had not troubled her to-night. 
 
 ^'■Just to he in letter business. That 's the whole of it," 
 she thought to herself, with her head upon the pillow. 
 She put it in words, mentally, in the same off-hand 
 fashion in which she would have spoken it to Cousin 
 Delight. " One must look out for that, and keep at it. 
 That 's the eyestone-woman's way ; and it 's what haa 
 kept me from worrying and despising myself to-night. 
 It only happened so, this time ; it was Mr. Wharne, — 
 not I. But I suppose one can always find something, 
 by trying. And the trying — " The rest wandered 
 off into a happy musing; and the m-using merged into 
 a dream. 
 
 Object and motive, — the " seeking first " ; she had 
 touched upon that, at last, with a little comprehension 
 of its working. 
 
 She liked Dakie Thayne. The next day they saw a 
 good deal of him ; he joined himself gradually, but not 
 obtrusively, to their party ; they included him in their 
 morning game of croquet. This was at her instance ; 
 he was standing aside, not expecting to be counted in, 
 though he had broken off his game of solitaire, and 
 i-iven the balls up to the starting-stake, as they came 
 out upon the ground. The Thoresby set had ignored 
 him, always, being too many already among themselves, 
 — and he was only a boy. 
 
 This morning there were only Imogen, and Etty, the 
 
70 A SUMMER IN LESLIE G(I-DTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 youngest ; a walking-party had gone off up the Cherry 
 Mountain road, and Ginevra was up stairs, packing ; foi 
 the Thoresbys had also suddenly decided to leave foi 
 Outledge on the morrow. Mrs. Thoresby declared, in 
 confidence, to Mrs. Linceford, that " old Wharne would 
 make any house intolerable ; and that Jefferson, at any 
 rate, was no place for more than a week's stay." She 
 "wouldn't have it mentioned in the house, however, 
 that she was going, till the time came, — it made such 
 an ado ; and everybody's plans were at loose ends among 
 the mountains, ready to fix themselves to anything at £ 
 day's notice ; they might have to-morrow's stage loaded 
 to crushing, if they did not take care." 
 
 " But I thought Mrs. Devreaux and the Klines were 
 with you," remarked Mrs. Linceford. 
 
 " Of our party ? O, no indeed ; we only fell in with 
 them here." 
 
 " Fell in " with them ; became inseparable for a week ; 
 and now were stealing a march, — dodging them, — lest 
 there might be an overcrowding of the stage, and an im- 
 possibility of getting outside seats I Mrs. Thoresby was a 
 woman of an imposing elegance and dignity, with her large 
 curls of resplendent gray hair, high up on her temples, her 
 severely-handsome dark eyebrows, and her own perfect, 
 white teeth ; yet she could do a shabby thing, you see, — 
 a thing made shabby by its motive. The Devreaux and 
 Klines were only " floating people," boarding about, — not 
 permanently valuable as acquaintances; well enough to 
 know when one met them, — that was all. Mrs. Thoresby 
 had daughters ; she was obliged to calculate as to what waj 
 worth while. Mrs. Linceford had an elegant establishment 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 71 
 
 in New York ; she had young sisters to bring out ; there 
 was suitability here ; and the girls would naturally find 
 themselves happy together. 
 
 Dakie Thayne developed brilliantly at croquet. He and 
 Leslie, with Etty Thoresby, against Imogen and the Had- 
 dens, swept triumphantly around the course, and came in 
 to the stake, before there had been even a "rover" upon 
 the other side. Except, indeed, as they were sent roving, 
 away off over the bank and down the road, from the slop- 
 ing, uneven ground, — the most extraordinary field, in 
 truth, on which croquet was ever attempted. But thea 
 you cannot expect a level, velvet lawn on the side o' 
 a mountain. 
 
 " Children always get the best of it at croquet, — when 
 they know anything at all," said Imogen Thoresby, dis- 
 contentedly, throwing down her mallet. "You 'poked' 
 awfully, Etty." 
 
 Etty began an indignant denial ; unable to endure the 
 double accusation of being a child, — she, a girl in her 
 fourteenth year, — and of " poking." But Imogen walked 
 away quite unconcernedly, and Jeannie Hadden followed 
 "aer. These two, as nearest in age, were growing inti- 
 cate. Ginevra was almost too old, — she was twenty. 
 
 They played a four-hall game then ; Leslie and Etty 
 against Elinor and Dakie Thayne. But Elinor declared 
 — laughing, all the same, in her imperturbably good- 
 natured way — that not only Etty's pokes were against 
 her, but that Dakie would not croquet Leslie's ball down 
 hill. Nothing ever really put Elinor Hadden out, the 
 girls said cf her, except when her hair would n't go up ; 
 and then it was funny to see her It was a sunbeam in s 
 
72 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Bnarl, or a snow-flurry out of a blue sky. This in paren- 
 thesis, however; it was quite true, as she alleged, thai 
 Dakie Thayne had taken up already that chivalrous atti- 
 tude toward Leslie Goldthwaite which would not let him 
 act otherwise than as her loyal knight, even though op 
 posed to her at croquet. 
 
 " You '11 have enough of that boy," said Mrs. Linceford, 
 when Leslie came in and found her at her window that 
 overlooked the wickets. " There 's nothing like a mascu- 
 line creature of that age for adoring and monopolizing a 
 girl two or three years older. He '11 make you mend his 
 gloves, and he '11 beg your hair-ribbons for hat-strings ; 
 and when you 're not dancing or playing croquet with 
 him, he '11 be after you with some boy-hobby or other, 
 wanting you to sympathize and help. ' I know their 
 tricks and their manners.' " But she looked amused and 
 kind while she threatened, and Leslie only smiled back 
 and said nothing. 
 
 Presently fresh fun gathered in Mrs. Linceford's eyes. 
 ' You 're making queer friends, child, do yv)u know, at 
 the beginning of your travels? We shall have Cocky- 
 ,^~focky, and Turkey-lurky, and Goosie-poosie, and aU. the 
 /' rest of them, before we get much farther. Don't breathe 
 a word, girls," she went on, turning toward them all, and 
 brimming over with merriment and mischief, — "but 
 there 's the best joke brewing. It 's just like a farce. 
 Is the door shut, Elinor ? And are the Thoresbys gone 
 up stairs ? They 're going with us, you know ? And 
 there 's nothing to be said about it ? And it 's partly to 
 get away from Marmaduke Wharne ? Well, he 's going 
 too. And it 's greatly because they 're spoiling the plac« 
 
A SCMMEB IN LESLIE (JOLDTHWATTE'S LIFE. 73 
 
 for him here. He thinks he'll try Outledge; and there's 
 nothing to be said about that either I And I 'm the un- 
 happy depositary of all their complaints and secrets. And 
 if nobody 's stopped, they '11 all be off in the stage with us 
 to-morrow morning ! I could n't help telling you, for it 
 was too good to keep." 
 
 The secrets were secrets through the day; and Mrs. 
 Linceford had her quiet fon, and opportunity for her 
 demure teasing. 
 
 " How long since Outledge was discovered and settled? 
 By the moderns, I mean," said Mr. Whame. " What 
 chance will one really have of quiet there ? " 
 
 " Well, really, to be honest, Mr. Whame, I 'm afraid 
 Outledge will be just at the rampant stage this summer. 
 It 's the second year of anything like general accommo- 
 dation, and everybody has just heard of it, and it 's the 
 knowing and stylish thing to go there. For a week or two 
 it may be quiet; but then there '11 be a jam. There '11 be 
 hops, and tableaux, and theatricals, of course ; interspersed 
 with 'picnicking at tlie tomb of Jehoshaphat,' or whatever 
 mountain solemnity stands for that. It'll be human nature 
 right over again, be assured, Mr. Whame." 
 
 Yet, somehow, Mr. Whame would not be frightened 
 from his determination. Until the evening ; when plans 
 came out, and good-byes and wonders and lamentations 
 began. 
 
 " Yes, we have decided quite suddenly ; the girls want 
 to see Outledge, and there 's a pleasant party of friends, 
 you know, — one can't always hav3 that. We shall 
 probably fiU a stage, — so they will take us through, 
 instead of dropping us at the Crawford House." In this 
 
74 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 manner Mrs. Thoresby explained to her dear finend, 
 Mrs. Dovreaux. 
 
 " We shall be quite sorry to lose you all. But it would 
 only have been a day or so longer, at any rate. Out 
 rooms are engaged for the fifteenth, at Saratoga ; we 've 
 very little time left for the mountains, and it wouldn't 
 be worth while to go off the regular track. We shall 
 probably go down to the Profile on Saturday." 
 
 And then — da capo — "Jefferson was no place really 
 to stay at ; you got the whole in the first minute," &c., &c. 
 
 " Good night, Mrs. Linceford. I 'm going up to un- 
 pack my valise and make myself comfortable again. All 
 things come round, or go by, I find, if one only keeps 
 one's self quiet. But I shall look in upon you at Out- 
 ledge yet." These were the stairway words of Marma- 
 duke Wharne to-night. 
 
 " ' One gets the whole in the first minute ' ' How can 
 they keep saying that? Look, Elinor, and see if you can 
 tell me where we are ? " was Leslie's cry, as, early next 
 morning, she drew up her window-shade, to look forth — 
 on what ? 
 
 Last night had lain there, underneath them, the great 
 basin between Starr King, behind, and the roots of that 
 lesser range, far down, above which the blue Lafayette 
 nprears itself. An enormous valley, filled with evergreen 
 forest, over whose tall pines and cedars one looked, as il 
 tney were but juniper and blueberry bushes ; far up above 
 whose heads the real average of the vast mountain-coun 
 try heaped itself in swelling masses, — miles and miles cf 
 beetling height and solid breadth. This morning it was 
 gone ; only the great peaks showed themselves, as a far 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 75 
 
 ofl, cliflF-bound shore, or here and there a green island in 
 a vast, vaporous lake. The night-chill had come down 
 among the heights, condensing the warm exhalations ot' 
 the valley-bosoai that had been shone into all day yester- 
 day by the long summer sun ; till, when he lifted him- 
 self once more out of the east, sending his leaping light 
 from crest to crest, white fallen clouds were tumbling 
 and wreathing themselves about the knees and against 
 the mighty bosoms of the giants, and at their feet the 
 forest was a sea. 
 
 " We must dress, and we must look I " exclaimed Les- 
 lie, as the early summons came for them. " O dear I O 
 dear ! if we were only like the birds I or if all this would 
 wait till we get down ! " 
 
 "Please drop the shade just a minute, Les. This 
 glass is in such a horrid light I I don't seem to have but 
 half a face, and I can't tell which is the up-side of that ! 
 And — O dear ! I 've no time to get into a fiiss ! " 
 Elinor had not disdained the beauty and wonder without , 
 but it was, after all, necessary to be dressed, and in a 
 given time ; and a bad light for a looking-glass is such 
 A disastrous thing ! 
 
 " I 've brushed out half my crimps," she said again ; 
 'and my ruffle is basted in wrong side out, and alto- 
 gether I'm got up d la furieuse!" But she laughed 
 before she had done scolding, catching sight of her own 
 exaggerated little frown in the distorting glass, that was 
 unable, with all its malice, to spoU the bright young face 
 when it came to smiles and dimples. 
 
 And then Jeannie came knocking at tne door. The^ 
 lud spare mmutes, afrer all, and the mists were yet toss 
 
76 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 ing ill the valley when they went down. They were 
 growuig filmy, and floating away in shining fragments up 
 over the shoulders of the hills, and the lake was lower 
 and less, and the emerging green was like the " Thou- 
 sand Islands." 
 
 They waited a little there, in the wide, open door, to- 
 gether, and looked out upon it; and then the Haddens 
 went round into their sister's room, and Leslie was left 
 alone in the rare, sweet, early air. The secret joy came 
 whispering at her heart again ; that there was all this in 
 the world, and that one need not be utterly dull and 
 mean, and dead to it ; that something in her answered to 
 the greatness overshadowing her; that it was possible, 
 sometimes, and that people did reach out into a laiger 
 life than that of self and every-day. How else did the 
 great mountains draw them to themselves so ? But then 
 she would not always be among the mountains. 
 
 And so she stood, drinking in at her eyes all the shift- 
 ing and melting splendors of the marvellous scene, with 
 her thought busy, once more, in its own questioning. 
 She remembered what she had said to Cousin Delight : 
 "It is all outside. Going, and doing, arid seeing, and 
 hearing, and having. In myself, am I good for any 
 more, after all ? Or only — a green fig-tree in the sun- 
 shine ? " 
 
 Why, with that word, did it all flash together for her, 
 as a connected thing? Her talk that morning, many 
 weeks ago, that had seemed to ramble so from one irrel- 
 evant matter to another, — from the parable to her fancy- 
 travelling, — the scenes and pleasures she had made for 
 herself, wondering if the real would ever come, — to th« 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 7? 
 
 jinen -drawer, representing her little feminine absorptions 
 iind interests, — and back to the fig-tree again, ending 
 with that word, — " the real living is the urging toward 
 the fruit" ? Her day's journey, and the hints of life — 
 narrowed, suffering, working — that had come to her, 
 each with its problem ? Marmaduke Wharne's indignant 
 protest against people who " did not know their daily 
 bread," and his insistence upon the two things for human 
 creatures to do, — the receiving and the giving ; the tak- 
 ing from God, in the sunshine, to grow ; the ripening 
 into generous uses for others ; was it all one, and did it 
 define the whole, and was it identical, in the broadest 
 and highest, with that sublime double command whereon 
 " hang the law and the prophets " ? 
 
 Something like this passed into her mind and soul, 
 brightening there, like the morning. It seemed, in that 
 glimpse, so clear and gracious, — the truth that had been 
 puzzling her. 
 
 Easy, beautiful summer-work ; only to be shone upon ; 
 to lift up one's branching life, and be — reverently — 
 glad; to grow sweet and helpful and good-giving, in 
 ine's turn; — could she not begin to do that? Perhaps 
 — by ever so little ; the fruit might be but a beriy, yet 
 \X might be fair and full, after its kind; and, at least, 
 some little bird might be the better for it. All around 
 her, too, the life of the world that had so troubled her, — 
 who could tell, in the tangle of green, where the good 
 and the gift might ripen and fall? Every little fern- 
 frond has its seed. 
 
 Jeannie came behind her again, and called her back to 
 the contradictory phase of self, that, with us all, is almost 
 
78 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 ready, like Peter, to deny the true. " What are yon 
 deep in now, Les ? " 
 
 " Nothing. Only — we go down from here, don't we, 
 Jeannie ? " 
 
 " Yes. And a very good thing for you, too. You 've 
 been in the clouds long enough. I shall he glad to get 
 yon to the common level again." 
 
 " You 've no need to be anxious. I can come down as 
 fast as anybody. That is n't the hard thing to do. 
 Let 's go in, and get salt-fish and cream for our break- 
 fast." 
 
 The Haddens were new to mountain travel; the 
 Thoresbys, literally, were " old stagers " ; they were up 
 in the stable-yai'd before Mrs. Linceford's party came out 
 from the breakfast-room. Dakie Thayne was there too ; 
 but that was quite natural for a boy. 
 
 They got their outside seats by it, scrambling up be- 
 fore the horses were put to, and sitting there while the 
 hostlers smiled at each other over their work. There 
 was room for two more, and Dakie Thayne took a place ; 
 but the young ladies looked askance, for Ginevra had 
 been detained by her mother, and Imogen had hoped to 
 keep a seat for Jeannie, without drawing the whole party 
 after her, and running aground upon politeness. So they 
 drove round to the door. 
 
 "First come, first served," cried Imogen, beckoning 
 Jeannie, who happened to be there, looking for her 
 friend. " I 've saved a place for you " ; — and Jeannie 
 Hadden, nothing loath, as a man placed the mounting 
 board, sprang up and took it. 
 
 I'hen the others came out. Mrs Thoresby -ind Mrs 
 
A SUMMEK m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE S LIFE. 79 
 
 Liiiceford got inside the vehicle at once, securing com- 
 fortable back corner-seats. Ginevra, with Leslie and 
 Elinor, and one or two others too late for their own in • 
 terest, but quite comprehending the thing to be preferred, 
 lingered while the last trunks went on, hoping for room 
 to be made somehow. 
 
 " It 's so gay on the top, going dowr. into the villages. 
 There 's no fun inside," said Imogen, complacently, set- 
 tling herself upon her perch. 
 
 " Won't there be another stage ? " 
 
 " Only half-way. This one goes through." 
 
 " I '11 go half-way on the other, then," said Ginevra. 
 
 *' This is the best team, and goes on ahead," was the 
 reply, 
 
 « You '11 be left behind," cried Mrs. Thoresby. " Don't 
 think of it, Ginevra ! " 
 
 "Can't that boy sit back, on the roof?" asked the 
 young lady. 
 
 " That boy " quite ignored the allusion ; but presently, 
 as Ginevra moved toward the coach-window to speak 
 with her mother, he leaned down to Leslie Goldthwaite. 
 " I '11 make room for yow," he said. 
 
 But Leslie had decided. Slie could not, with efiron- 
 tery of selfishness, take the last possible place, — a place 
 already asked for by another. She thanked Dakie 
 Thayne, and, with just one little secret sigh, got into the 
 interior, placing herself by the farther door. 
 
 At that moment she missed something. " I 've left 
 my brown veil in your room, Mrs. Linceford " ; — and 
 »iie was about to alight again to go for it. 
 
 ' I 'II fetch it," cried Dakie Thayne from overhead, 
 
 «» 
 
80 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFK 
 
 and, as he spoke, came down, on her vie, by the wheel, 
 and, springing around to the house entrance, disappeared 
 ap the stairs. 
 
 " Ginevra ! " Then there came a laugh and a shout 
 and son^e crinoline against the forward open corner of the 
 coach, and Ginevra Thoresby was by the driver's side. 
 A little ashamed, in spite of herself, though it was done 
 under cover of a joke ; but " All 's fair among the moun- 
 tains," somebody said, and " Possession 's nine points," 
 said another, and the laugh was with her, seemingly. 
 
 Dakie Thayne flushed up, hot, without a word, when 
 he came out, an instant after. 
 
 " I 'm so sorry ! " said Leslie, with real regret, ac- 
 cented with honest indignation. 
 
 " It 's your place," called out a rough man, who made 
 the third upon the coach-box. " Why don't y<)u stick 
 up for it ? " 
 
 The color went down slowly in the boy's face, and a 
 pride came up in his eye. He put his hand to "his cap, 
 with a little irony of deference, and lifted it oif with the 
 graco of a grown man. " I know it 's my place. But 
 the young lady may keep it — now. I'd rather be a 
 gentleman ! " said Dakie Thayne. 
 
 " You 've got the best of it ! " This came from Mar- 
 inaduke Wharne, as the door closed upon the boy, and 
 the stage rolled down the road toward Cherry Moun- 
 tain. 
 
 There is a " best " to be got out of everything ; but 11 
 IS neither the best of place or possession, nor the chuckle 
 rF ^he last word. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 81 
 
 VI. 
 
 AMONG the mountains, somewhere between the An- 
 droscoggin and the Saco, — I don't feel bound to tel. 
 ^ou precisely where, and I have only a story-teller's 
 word to give you for it at all, — lies the little neighbor- 
 hood of Outledge. An odd corner of a great township 
 such as they measure off in these wilds, where they take 
 in, with some eligible " locations " of intervale land, mUes 
 also of pathless forest where the bear and the moose are 
 wandering still, a pond, perhaps, filling up a basin of 
 acres and acres in extent, and a good-sized mountain or 
 two, thrown in to keep off the north- wind, — a corner 
 cut off, as. Its name indicates, by the outrunning of a pre- 
 cipitous ridge of granite, round which a handfiil of popu- 
 lation had crept and built itself a group of dwellings, — 
 this was the spot discovered and seized to themselves 
 some four or five years since by certain migratory pio- 
 neers of fashion. 
 
 An old two-story farm-house, with four plain rooms of 
 generous dimensions on each floor, in which the first 
 delighted summer-party had divided itself, glad and grate- 
 fill to occupy them double and even treble bedded, had 
 become the "hotel," with a name up across tlie gable 
 of the new wing, — " Giant's-Cairn House," — and the 
 eight original rooms made into fourteen. The wing was 
 clapped on by its middle ; rushing out at the front toward 
 the road to meet the summer-tide of travel as it should 
 (tuge by, and hold up to it, arrestively, its titular sign- 
 *• w 
 
82 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE. 
 
 board ; the other half as expressively making its bee-line 
 toward thn river and the mountain-view at back, — jnst 
 as each fresh arrival, seeking out the preferable rooms, 
 inevitably did Behind, upon the other side, an L pro- 
 vided new kitchens ; and over these, within a year, had 
 been carried up a second story, with a hall for dancing, 
 tableaux, theatiicals, and travelling jugglers. 
 
 Up to this hostelry whirled daily, from the southward^ 
 the great six horse stage ; and from the northward came 
 thrice a week wagons or coaches " through the hills," 
 besides such " extras " as might drive down at any hour 
 of day or night. 
 
 Round the smooth curve of broad, level road that 
 skirted the ledges from the upper village pranced four 
 splendid bays ; and after them rollicked and swayed, with 
 a perfect delirium of wheels and springs, the great black 
 and yellow-bodied vehicle, like a huge bumble-bee buzz- 
 ing back with its spoil of a June day to the hive. The 
 June sunset was golden and rosy upon the hills and cliflFs, 
 and Giant's Cairn stood burnished against the eastern 
 blue. Gay companies, scattered about piazzas and green- 
 swards, stopped in their talk, or their promenades, or 
 their croquet, to watch the arrivals. 
 
 " It 's stopping at the Green Cottage." 
 
 " It 's the Haddens. Their rooms have been wait- 
 ing since the twenty-third, and all the rest are full." 
 Aiid two or three young girls dropped mallets and rat 
 over. 
 
 « Maud Walcott I " " Mattie Shannon 1 " 
 
 » Jeannie I " " Nell ! " 
 
 " How came you here ? " 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 83 
 
 "We 've been here these ten days, — looking for you 
 Ihe last three." 
 
 " Why, I can't take it in ! I 'm so surprised ! " 
 
 "Is n't it jolly, though?" 
 
 " Miss Goldthwaite, — Miss Walcott. Miss Shannon, 
 — Miss Goldthwaite. — My sister, Mrs. Linceford." 
 
 " Me void ! " And a third came up, suddenly, laying 
 a hand upon each of the Haddens from behind. 
 
 "You, Sin Saxon ! How many more ? " 
 
 " We 're coming. Father Abraham ! All of us, nearly , 
 three hundred thousand more — oi less ; half the Routh 
 girls, with Madam to the fore ! " 
 
 " And we 've got all the farther end of the wing down 
 stairs, — the garden bedrooms ; you 've no idea how 
 scrumptious it is I You must come over after tea, and 
 see." 
 
 " Not all, Mattie ; you forget the solitary spinster." 
 
 " No, I don't ; who ever does ? But can't you ignore 
 her for once ? 
 
 " Or let a fellow speak in the spirit of prophecy ? " 
 said Sin Saxon. " We 're sure to get the better of Gray- 
 wacke, and why not anticipate ? " 
 
 " Graywacke ? " said Jeannie Hadaen. " Is that a 
 name ? It sounds like the side of a mountain." 
 
 "And acts like one," rejoined Sin Saxon. "Won't 
 budge. But it is n't her name, exactly ; only Saxon for 
 Craydocke ; suggestive of obstinacy and the Old Silu- 
 rian. An ancient maiden wto infests our half the wing. 
 We 'v3 got all the rooms but, hers, and we 're bound to 
 get her out. She 's been there tnree years, in the same 
 spot, — went in with the lath and plaster, - - and its timt 
 
JJ4 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 she started. Besides, have n't I got manifest destiny on 
 my side ? Ain't I a Saxon ? " Sin Saxon tossed uj) a 
 merry, bewitching, saucy glance out of her blue, starlike 
 eyes, that shone under a fair, low brow touched and 
 crowned lightly with the soft haze of gold-brown locks 
 fiizzed into a delicate mistiness after the ruling fashion of 
 the hour. 
 
 " What a pretty thing she is ! " said Mrs. Linceford, 
 when, seeing her busy with her boxes, and the master of 
 the house approaching to show the new arrivals to their 
 rooms. Sin Saxon and her companions flitted away as they 
 had come, with a few more sentences of bright girl-non- 
 sense flung back at parting. " And a witty little minx, 
 as well. Where did you know her, Jeannie ? And what 
 sort of a Satanic name is that you call her by ? " 
 
 " Just suits such a mischief, does n't it ? Short for 
 Asenath, — it was always her school-name. She 's just 
 finished her last year at Madam Ronth's ; she came there 
 soon after we did. It 's a party of the graduates, and 
 some younger ones left with Madam for the long holi- 
 lays, that she 's travelling with. I wonder if she is n't 
 sick of her life, though, by this time ! Fancy those girls, 
 Nell, with a whol ■ half-wing of the hotel' to themselves, 
 and Sin Saxon in the midst ! " 
 
 " Poor ' Graywacke ' in the midst, you mean," said 
 Nell. 
 
 " Like a respectable old grimalkin at the mercy of a 
 crowd of boys and a tin kettle," added Jeannie, laughing. 
 
 " I 've no doubt she's a very nice person, too. I only 
 hope, if I come across her, I may n't call her Graywacke 
 to her facn." said Mrs. Linceford. 
 
A SUMJIER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 8ft 
 
 "Just what you '11 be morally sure to do, Augusta! " 
 With this, they had come up the staircase and along a 
 narrow passage leading down between a dozen or so of 
 small bedrooms on either side, — for the Green Cottage 
 also had run out its addition of two siones since summer 
 guests had become many and importunate, — and stood 
 now where three open doors, one at the right and two at 
 the left, invited their entrance upon what was to be their 
 own especial territory for the next two months. From 
 one side they looked up the river along the face of the 
 great ledges, and caught the grandeur of far-off Washing- 
 ton, Adams, and Madison, filling up the northward end 
 of the long valley. The aspect of the other was toward 
 the frowning glooms of Giant's Cairn close by, and broad- 
 ened then down over the pleasant subsidence of the south- 
 ern country to where the hills grew less, and fair, small, 
 modest peaks lifted themselves just into blue height and 
 nothing more, smiling back with a contented deference 
 toward the mightier majesties, as those who might say, — 
 " We do our gentle best ; it is not yours ; yet we too are 
 mountains, though but little ones." From underneath 
 spread the foreground of green, brilliant intervale, with 
 the river flashing down between margins of sand and 
 [jebbles in the midst. 
 
 Here they put Leslie Goldthwaite ; and here, some- 
 how, her first sensation, as she threw back her blinds to 
 Kst in all the twilight for her dressing, was a feeling of 
 half relief from the strained awe and wonder of the last 
 few days. Life would not seem so petty here as in the 
 face of all that solemn stateliness. There was a reaction 
 of respite and repose. And why not ? The great emo 
 
B6 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Hous are not meant ta come to us daily in their unquali- 
 fied strength. God knows how to dilute his elixirs foi 
 the soul. His fine, impalpable air, spread round the 
 earth, is not more cunningly mixed from pungent gases 
 for our hourly breath, than life itself is thinned and toned 
 that we may receive and bear it. 
 
 Leslie wondered if it were wrong that the high moun- 
 tain fervor let itself go from her so soon and easily ; that 
 'the sweet pleasantness of this new resting-place should 
 come to her as a rest ; that the laughter and frolic of the 
 school-girls made her glad with such sudden sympathy 
 and foresight of enjoyment ; that she should have " come 
 down " all the way from Jefferson in Jeannie's sense, and 
 that she almost felt it a comfortable thing herself not to 
 be kept always " up in the clouds." 
 
 Sin Saxon, as they called her, was so bright and odd 
 and fascinating ; was there any harm — because no spe- 
 ;ial, obvious good — in that ? There was a little twinge 
 of doubt, remembering poor Miss Craydocke ; but that 
 had seemed pure fun, not malice, after all, — and it was, 
 hearing Sin Saxon tell it, very funny. She could imagine 
 the life they led the quiet lady, — yet, if it were quite 
 intolerable, why did she remain ? Perhaps, after all, she 
 saw through the fun of it. And I think, myself, perhaps 
 she did. 
 
 The Marie Stuart net went on to-night ; and then 
 rach a pretty muslin, white, with narrow, mode-brown 
 stripes, and small, bright leaves dropped over them, as if 
 its wearer had stood out under a maple-tree in October, 
 and all the tiniest and most radiant bits had fallen ana 
 fiisttined themselves about her. And, last of all. with he; 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITFS LITE. 87 
 
 little hooded cape of scarlet cashmere over her arm, she 
 went down to eat cream-biscuit and wood-strawberries 
 for tea. Her summer life began with a channing fresh- 
 ness and dainty delight. 
 
 Thee were pleasant voices of happy people about them 
 in hall and open parlor, as they sat at their late repast. 
 Everjrthing seemed indicative of abundant coming enjoy- 
 ment ; and the girls chatted gayly of all they had already^ 
 discovered or conjectured, and began to talk of the ways 
 of the place and the sojourners in it, quite like old ha- 
 hituSes. 
 
 It was even more delightful yet, strolling out when tea 
 was over, and meeting the Routh party again half-way 
 between the cottage and the hotel, and sauntering on 
 with them, insensibly, till they found themselves on the 
 wide wing-piazza, upon which opened the garden bed- 
 rooms, and being persuaded after all to sit down since 
 they had got there, though Mrs. Linceford had demurred 
 at a too hasty rushing over, as new-comers, to begin 
 visits. 
 
 " O, nobody knows when they are called upon here, or 
 who comes first," said Mattie Shannon. " We generally 
 receive half-way across the green, and it 's a chance 
 which turns back, or whether we get near either house 
 again or not. Houses don't signify, except when it 
 rains." 
 
 " But it just signifies that you should see how mag- 
 nificently we have settled ourselves for nights, and dress- 
 ing, and when it does rain," said Sin Saxon, throwing 
 back a door behind her, that stood a little ajar. It opened 
 directly into a small apartment, half rarlor ani half 
 
B8 A SUMMER in LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S IJE. 
 
 dressuig-room, from which doors showed others, on eithet 
 side, furnished as sleeping-rooms. 
 
 "It was Maud Walcott's, between the Arnalls' and 
 mine ; but, what with our trunks, and our beds, and our 
 crinolines, and our towel-stands, we wanted a Bowditch's 
 Navigator to steer clear of the reefs, and something was 
 always getting knocked over ; so, one night, we were 
 seized simultaneously with an idea. We 'd make a bou- 
 doir of this for the general good, and forthwith we fell 
 upon the bed, and amongst us got it down. It was the 
 greatest fun ! We carried the pieces and the mattresses 
 all off ourselves up to the attic, after ten o'clock, and we 
 gave the chambermaid a dollar next morning, and no- 
 body 's been the wiser since. And then we walked to 
 the upper village and bought that extraordinary chintz, 
 and frilled and cushioned our trunks into ottomans, and 
 curtained the dress-hooks ; and Lucinda got us a rocking- 
 chair, and Maud came in with me to sleep, and we kept 
 our extra pillows, and we should be comfortable as queens 
 if it was n't for Graywacke." 
 
 " Now, Sin Saxon, you know Graywacke is just the 
 life of the house. What would such a parcel of us do, if 
 we had n't something to run upon ? " 
 
 " Only I 'm afraid I shall get tired of it at last. She 
 bears it so. It is n't exactly saintliness, nor Graywacke- 
 iness, but it seems sometimes as if she took a quiet kind 
 of fun out of it herself, — as if she were somehow laugh- 
 ing at us, after all, in her sleeve ; and if she is, she 's got 
 the biggest end. She 's bright enough." 
 
 " Don't we tree-toad her within an inch of her life, 
 though, when we come home in the wagons at night ? J 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAI'fE'S LIFE. 85> 
 
 should n't think she could stand that long. I guess she 
 wants all her beauty-sleep. And Kate Arnall can tn- 
 whit^ tu-whoo I equal to Tennyson himself, or any great 
 white American owl." 
 
 " Yes, but what do you think ? As true as I live, I 
 heard her answer back the other night with such a sly 
 little ' Katy-did ! she did ! she did I ' I thought at lirst 
 it actually came from the great elm-trees. O, she 's been 
 a girl once, you may depend ; and has n't more than half 
 got over it either. But wait till we have our ' howl ' I " 
 
 What a " howl " was, superlative to " tree-toading," 
 " owl-hooting," and other divertisements, did not appear 
 at this time ; for a young man did, approaching from the 
 front of the hotel, and came up to the group on the piazza 
 with the question, " At what time do we set oft' for 
 Feather-Cap to-morrow ? " 
 
 " O, early, Mr. Scherman ; by nine o'clock." 
 
 " Earher than you '11 be ready," said Frank Scher- 
 man's sister, one of the " Routh " girls also. 
 
 " I sha'n't have any crimps to take down, that 's one 
 thing," Frank answered. And Sin Saxon, glancing at 
 his handsome waving hair, whispered saucily to Jeannie 
 Hadden, " I don't more than half believe that, either " ; 
 — then, aloud, " You must join the party too, girls, by 
 the way. It 's one of the nicest excursions here. We Ve 
 got two wagons, and they '11 be full ; but there 's Hol- 
 den's ' little red ' will take six, and I don't believe any- 
 body has spoken for it. Mr. Scherman I would n't it 
 make you happy to go and see ? " 
 
 •' Most intensely ! " and Frank Scherman bowed a low, 
 graceful bow, settling back into his first attitude, how 
 
90 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 ever, as one who could quite willingly resign himself to 
 his present comparative unhappiness awhile longer. 
 
 " Where is Feather-Cap ? " asked Leslie Goldthwaite. 
 
 " It 's the mountain you see there, peeping round the 
 shoulder of Giant's Cairn ; a comfortable little rudiment 
 of a mountain, just enough for a primer-lesson in climb- 
 mg. Don't you see how the crest drops over on one 
 side, and that scrap of pine — which is really a huge 
 gaunt thing a hundred years old — slants out from it with 
 just a tuft of green at the very tip, like an old feather 
 stuck in jauntily ? " 
 
 " And the pine-woods round the foot of the Cairn are 
 lovely," said Maud. 
 
 " Oh ! " cried Leslie, drawing a long breath, as if their 
 Bpicy. smell were already about her, " there is nothing I 
 delight in so as pines ! " 
 
 " You '11 have your fill to-morrow, then ; for it 's ten 
 miles through nothing else, and the road is like a carpet 
 with the soft brown needles." 
 
 " I hope Augusta won't be too tired to feel like go- 
 ing," said Elinor. 
 
 " We had better ask her soon, then ; she is looking 
 this way, now. We ought to go. Sin ; we 've got all our 
 get'^ling to do for the night." 
 
 " We '11 walk over with you," said Sin Saxon. " Then 
 we shall have done up all the preliminaries nicely. We 
 called on you — before you were off the stage-coach ; 
 you 've returned it ; and now we '11 pay up and leave 
 you owing us one. Come, Mr. Scherman ; you '11 be so 
 far on your way to Holden's, and perhaps inertia wil 
 carry you through." 
 
A SUMMEE m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE. 91 
 
 But a little girl presently appeared, running from the 
 hotel portico at the front, as they came round to view 
 fixim thence. Madam Routh was sitting in the open hall 
 with some newly arrived friends, and sent one of her 
 lambs, as Sin called them, to say to the older girls that 
 she preferred they should not go away again to-night. 
 
 "'Ruin seize thee, Routh — ^less king!'" quoted Sin 
 Saxon, with an absurd air of declamation. " ' 'T was 
 ever thus from childhood's hour,' — and now, just as we 
 thought childhood's hour was comfortably over, — tliat 
 the clock had struck one, and down we might run, hick- 
 ory, dickory, dock, — behold the lengthened sweetness 
 long drawn out of school rule in vacation, even before 
 the very face and eyes of Freedom on her mountain 
 heights ! Well, we must go, I suppose. Mr. Scherman, 
 you '11 have to represent us to Mrs. Linceford, and per- 
 suade her to join us to Feather-Cap. And be sure you 
 get the ' little red ' 1 " 
 
 " It '11 be all the worse for Graywacke, if we 're kept 
 in and sent off early," she continued, sotto voce, to her 
 companions, as they turned away. " My ! what has that 
 boy got?" 
 
 After all this, I wonder if you would n't just like to 
 look in at Miss Craydocke's room with me, who can give 
 you a pass anywhere within the geography of my story ? 
 
 She came in here " with the lath and plaster," as Sin 
 Saxon had said. She had gathered little comforts and 
 embellishments abciit her from summer to summer, until 
 the room had a home-ch ?eriness, and even a look of 
 luxury, contrasted with the bare dormitories around it 
 Over the straw matting, that soon grows shabby in a 
 
92 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 hotel, she had laid a large, nicely-bound square of soft, 
 green carjiet, in a little mossy pattern, that covered the 
 middle of the floor, and was held tidily in place by a foot 
 of the bedstead and two forward ones each of the table 
 and washstand. On this little green stood her Shaker 
 rocking-chair and a round white-pine light-stand with hei 
 work-basket and a few books. Against the wall hung 
 some white-pine shelves with more books, — quite a little 
 circulating library they were for invalids and read-oul 
 people, who came to the mountains, like foolish virgins, 
 with scant supply of the oil of literature for the feed- 
 ing of their biani-lamps. Besides these, there were en 
 gravings and photographs in passe-partout frames, that 
 journeyed with her safely in the bottoms of her trunk?. 
 Also, the wall itself had been papered, at her own cost 
 and providing, with a pretty pale-green hanging; and 
 there were striped muslin curtains to the window, over 
 which were caught the sprays of some light, wandering 
 vine that sprung from a low-suspended terra cotta vai^ 
 between. 
 
 She had everything pretty about her, this old Miss 
 Craydocke. How many people do, that have not a bit 
 of outward prettiness themselves ! Not one cubit to the 
 stature, not one hair white or black, can they add or 
 change ; and around them grow the lilies in the glory of 
 Solomon, and a frosted leaf or a mossy twig, that they 
 can pick up from under their feet and bring home from 
 the commonest walk, comes in with them, bearing a 
 brightness and a grace that seems sometimes almost like 
 » satire ! But in the midst grows silently tlie century- 
 plant of the soul, absorbing to itself hourly that whicl 
 
A SDMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 93 
 
 feeds the beauty of the lily and the radiance of the leaf, 
 — waiting only for the hundred years of its shrouding to 
 be over ! 
 
 Miss Craydocke never came in from the woods and 
 rocks without her trophies. Rare, lovely mosses, and 
 bits of most dehcate ferns, maiden-hair and lady-bracken, 
 tiny trails of wintergreen and arbutus, filled a' great shal- 
 low Indian china dish upon her bureau-top, and grew, in 
 their faiiy' fashion, in the clear, soft water she kept them 
 freshened with. 
 
 Shining scraps of mountain minerals, — garnets and 
 bright-tinted quartz and beryls, heaped artistically, rather 
 than scientifically, on a base of jasper and malachite and 
 dark basalt and glistening spar and curious fossils, - 
 these not gathered by any means in a single summer or 
 in ordinary ramblings, but treasured long, and standing, 
 some of them, for friendly memories — balanced on the 
 one side a like grouping of shells and corals and sea- 
 mosses on the other, upon a broad bracket-mantel put up 
 over a little corner fireplace ; for Miss Craydocke's room, 
 joining the main house, took the benefit of one of its old 
 chimneys. 
 
 Above or about the pictures lay mossy, gnarled, and 
 twisted branches, gray and green, framing them in a for- 
 est arabesque ; and great pine cones, pendent from their 
 boughs, crowned and canopied the mirror. 
 
 " What do you keep your kindling-wood up there 
 For ? " Sin Saxon had asked, with a grave, puzzled face, 
 coming in, for pure mischief, on one of her frequent and 
 ngenious errands. 
 
 " Why, where should I put a pile of wood or a basket? 
 
94 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 There 's no room for things to lie round here ; you hav« 
 to hang everything up ! " — was Miss Craydocke's an 
 swer, quick as a flash, her eyes twinkhng comically with 
 appreciation of the fun. 
 
 And Sin Saxon had gone away and told the girls that 
 the old lady knew how to feather her nest better than 
 any of them, and was sharp enough at a peck, too, upon 
 occasion. 
 
 She found her again, one morning, sitting in the midst 
 of a pile of homespun, which she was cutting up with 
 great shears into boys' blouses. 
 
 " There I that 's the noise that has disturbed me so I ' 
 cried the girl. " I thought it was a hay-cutter, or a plan- 
 ing-machine, or that you had got the asthma awfully. I 
 could n't write my letter for listening to it, and came 
 round to ask what was the matter I — Miss Craydocke, I 
 don't see why you keep the door bolted on your side. It 
 is n't any more fair for you than for me ; and I 'm sure 
 I do all the visiting. Besides, it 's dangerous. What if 
 anything should happen in the night ? I could n't get in 
 to help you. Or there might be a fire in our room, — 
 I 'm sure I expect nothing else. We boiled eggs in the 
 Etna the other night, and got too much alcohol in the 
 saucer ; and then, in the midst of the blaze and excite- 
 oaent, what should Madam Routh do but come knocking 
 at the door I Of course we had to put it in the closet, 
 and there were all our muslin dresses, — that were n't 
 hanging on the hooks in Maud's room ! I assure you 1 
 felt like the man sitting on the safsty-valve, standing 
 with my back against the door, and my clothes spreao 
 out fcr fear she would see the flash under the crack 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 95 
 
 For we 'd nothing else but moonlight in the room. — 
 But now tell me, please, what are all these things? Meal- 
 bags?" 
 
 " Do you really want to know ? " 
 
 " Of course I do. Now that I 've got over my fright 
 about your strangling with the asthma — those shears did 
 wheeze so ! — my curiosity is all alive again." 
 
 I 've a cousin down in North Carolina teaching the 
 little freedmen." 
 
 " And she 's to have all these sacks to tie the naughty 
 ones up in ? What a bright idea ! And then to whip 
 them with rods as the Giant did his crockery, I suppose ? 
 Or perhaps — they can't be petticoats ! Won't she be 
 warm, though ? " 
 
 " May be, if you were to take one and sew up the 
 seams, you would be able to satisfy yourself." 
 
 " I ? Why, I never could put anything together 1 I 
 tried once, with a pair of hospital drawers, and they were 
 like Sam Hyde's dog, that got cut in two, and clapped 
 together again in a hurry, two legs up, and two legs 
 down. Miss Craydocke, why don't i/ou go down among 
 the freedmen ? You have n't half a sphere up here. 
 Nothing but Hobbs's Location, and the little Hoskinses." 
 
 " I can't organize and execute. Letitia can. It 's her 
 gift. I can't do great things. I can only just carry round 
 my little cup of cold water." 
 
 " But it gets so dreadfully joggled in such a place as 
 Ais ! Don't we girls disturb you. Miss Craydocke ? I 
 should think you 'd be quieter in the other wing, or uv 
 stairs." 
 
 " Young folks are apt to tnink that old folks cugbt to 
 
66 A SUMMER IN LESLIE UCLtTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 go a story higher. But we 're content, and they must put 
 up with us, until the proprietor orders a move." 
 
 " Well, good by. But if eyer you do smell smoke in 
 the night, you '11 draw your bolt the first thing, won't 
 you?" 
 
 This evening, — upon which we have o£fered you your 
 pass, reader, — Miss Craydocke is sitting with her mos- 
 quito bar up, and her candle alight, finishing some pretty 
 thing that daylight has not been long enough for. A flag 
 basket at her feet holds strips and rolls of delicate Jiirch- 
 bark, carefully split into filmy thinness, and heaps of star- 
 mosses, cup-mosses, and those thick and crisp with clus- 
 tering brown spires, as well as sheets of lichen silvery 
 and pale green ; and on the lap-board across her knees 
 lies her work, — a graceful cross in perspective, put on 
 card-board in birch shaded from faint buff to bistre, 
 dashed with the detached lines that seem to have quilted 
 the tree-teguments together. Around the foot of the 
 cross rises a mound of lovely moss-work in relief, with 
 feathery filaments creeping up and wreathing about the 
 shaft and thwart-beam. Miss Craydocke is just dotting 
 in some bits of slender coral-headed stems among little 
 brown mushrooms and chalices, as there comes a sudden, 
 imperative knocking at the door of communication, or 
 defence, between her and Sin Saxon. 
 
 " You must just open this time, if you please I I 've 
 got my arms full, and 1 ijould n't come round." 
 
 Miss Craydocke slipped her lap-board — work and all 
 — under her bureau, upon the floor, for safety ; and then 
 with her quaint, queer expression, in which curiosity 
 plucKmess, and a foretaste of amusement mingled so as ta 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 97 
 
 drive out annoyance, pushed back her bolt, and pre- 
 sented herself to the demand of her visitor, much as an 
 undaunted man might fling open his door at the call of 
 a mob. 
 
 Sin Saxon stood there, in the light of the good lady's 
 candle, making a pretty picture against the dim back- 
 ground of the unlighted room beyond. Her fair hair was 
 tossed, and her cheeks flushed . her blue eyes bright with 
 Bauciness and fun. In her hands, or across her arms, 
 rather, she held some huge, uncouth thmg, that was not 
 to the last degree dainty-smelling, either ; something con- 
 glomerated rudely upon a great crooked log or branch, 
 which, glanced at closer, proved to be a fragment of gray 
 old pine. Sticks and roots and bark, straw and grass and 
 locks of dirty sheep's-wool, made up its bulk and its unti- 
 diness ; and this thing Sin held out with glee, declaring 
 she had brought a real treasure to add to Miss Cray' 
 docke's collection. 
 
 " Such a chance I " she said, coming in. " One mightn't 
 have another in a dozen years. I have just given Jimmy 
 Wigley a quarter for it, and he 'd just all but broken his 
 neck to get it. It 's a real crow's nest. Corvinus some- 
 - thing-else-us, I suppose. Where will you have it. I 'm 
 going to nail it up for you myself. Won't it make a nice 
 contrast to the humming-bird's ? Over the bed, shall I ? 
 But then, if it should drop down on your nose, you know I 
 I think the corner over the fireplace will be best. Yes, 
 we '11 have it right up perpendicular, in the angle. The 
 branch twists a little, you see, and the nest will run out 
 with its odds and ends like an old banner. Might I push 
 up the washstand to get on to ? " 
 
98 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " Suppose you lay it in the fireplace ? It will just rest 
 nicely across those evergreen boughs, and — be in the cur- 
 rent of ventilation outward." 
 
 " Well, that's an idea, to be sure. — Miss Craydocke !. " 
 — Sin Saxon says this in a sudden interjectional way, as 
 if it were with some quite fresh idea, — "I'm certain you 
 play chess ! " 
 
 " You 're mistaken. I don't." 
 
 " You would, then, by intuition. Your counter-moves 
 are — so — triumphant. Why, it 's really an ornament ! " 
 With a little stress and strain that made her words inter- 
 jectional, she had got it into place, thrusting one end up 
 the throat of the chimney, and lodging the crotch that 
 held the nest upon the stems of fresh pine that lay across 
 the andirons ; and the " odds and ends," in safe position, 
 and suggesting neither harm nor unsuitableness, looked 
 unique and curious, and not so ugly. 
 
 " It 's really an ornament ! " repeated Sm, shaking the 
 dust off her dress. 
 
 " As you expected, of course," replied Miss Cray- 
 docke. 
 
 "Well, I wasn't — not to say — confident. I was 
 afraid it mightn't be much but scientific. But now — 
 if you don't forget and light a fire under it some day, 
 Miss Craydocke ! " 
 
 " I sha'n't forget ; and I 'm very much obliged, really. 
 Perhaps by and by I shall put it in a rough box and send 
 it to a nephew of mine, with some other things, for his 
 collection." 
 
 " Goodness, Miss Craydocke ! They won't express it 
 They'll think it's an infernal machine, or a murder 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 9a 
 
 But it 's disposed of for the present, any way. The truth 
 was, you know, twenty-five. certs is a kind of cup of cold 
 water to Jimmy Wigley, and then there was the fun of 
 bringing it in, and I didn't know anybody but you to 
 oifer it to ; I 'm so glad you like it ; the girls thought 
 you would n't. Perhaps I can get you another, or some- 
 thing else as curious, some day, — a moose's horns, or a 
 bear-skin; there 's no knowing. But now — apropos of 
 the nest — I 've a crow to pick witJi you. You gave me 
 horrible dreams all night, the last time I came to see you. 
 I don't know whether it was your little freedmen's meal- 
 bags, or Miss Letitia's organizhig and executive genius, or 
 the cup of cold water you spoke of, or — it 's just occurred 
 to me — the fuss I had over my waterfall that day, trying 
 to make it into a melon ; but I had the most extraordinary 
 time endeavoring to pay you a visit. Down South, it 
 was, and there you were, organizing and executing, after 
 all, on the most tremendous scale, some kind of freed- 
 men's institution. You were explaining to me and show- 
 ing me all sorts of things, in such enormous bulk and 
 extent and number! First I was to see your stables, 
 where the cows were kept. A trillion of cows ! — that 
 was what you told me. And on the way we went down 
 among such wood-piles ! — whole forests cut up into kind- 
 lings and built into solid walls that reached up till the sky 
 looked like a thread of blue sewing-silk between. And 
 presently we came to a kind of opening and turned off to 
 see the laundry (Mrs. Lisphin had just brought home my 
 things at bedtime); and there was a place to do the world's 
 washing in, or bleach out all the Ethiopians ! Tubs like the 
 hold of the Great Eastern, and spouts coming into them 
 
100 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 like the Staubbach ! Clothes-lines like a parade-ground 
 of telegraphs, fields like prairies, snow-patched, as far as 
 you could see, with things laid out to whiten I And sud- 
 denly we came to what was like a pond of milk, with 
 crowds of negro women stirring it with long poles ; and 
 all at once something came roaring behind and you called 
 to me to jump aside, — that the hot water was let on to 
 niakri the starch ; and down it rushed, a cataract like 
 Niagara, in clouds of steam I And then — well, it changed 
 to something else, I suppose ; but it was after that fashion 
 all night long, and the last I remember, I was trying to 
 climb up the Cairn with a cup of cold water set on atilt 
 at the crown of my head, which I was to get to the sky 
 parlor without spilling a drop ! " 
 
 " Nobody's brain but yours would have put it together 
 like that," said Miss Craydocke, laughing tUl she had to 
 feel for her pocket-handkerchief to wipe away the tears. 
 
 " Don't cry. Miss Craydocke," said Sin Saxon, chang- 
 mg suddenly to the most touching tone and expression 
 of regretful concern. " I did n't mean to distress you. 
 I don't think anything is really the matter with my 
 brain ! " 
 
 " But I '11 tell you what it is," she went on presently, 
 in her old manner, " I am in a dreadful way witb that 
 waterfall, and I wish you 'd lend me one of your caps, or 
 advise me what to do. It 's an awful thing when the 
 fiishion alters, just as you 've got used to the last one. 
 You can't go back, and you don't dare to go forward. I 
 wish hair was like noses, born in a shape, without giving 
 you any responsibility. But we do have to finish our. 
 selves, and that's just what makes us restless." 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLLTHWAITE'S LIFE. 101 
 
 " You have n't come to the worst yet," said Miss 
 Craydocke, significantly. 
 
 " What do you mean ? What is the worst ? Will it 
 come all at once, or will it be broken to me ? " 
 
 "It will be broken, and that's the worst- One of 
 these years you '11 find a little thin spot coming, may be, 
 and spreading, over your forehead or on the top of your 
 head ; and it '11 be the fashion to comb the hair just so as 
 to show it oflF, and make it worse ; and for a while that '11 
 be your thorn in the flesh. And then you'll begin to 
 wonder why the color is n't so bright as it used to be, 
 but looks dingy, all you can do to it ; and again, after a 
 while, some day, in a strong light, you '11 see there are 
 white threads in it, and the rest is fading; and so by 
 degrees, and the degrees all separate pains, you '11 have 
 to come to it and give up the crown of your youth, and 
 take to scraps of lace and muslin, or a front, as I did a 
 dozen years ago." 
 
 Sin Saxon had no sauciness to give back for that ; it 
 made her feel all at once that this old Miss Craydocke 
 \iad really been a girl too, with golden hair like her own, 
 perhaps, — and not so very far in the past eitiier but that 
 a like space in her own future could picture itself to her 
 mind ; and something, quite different in her mood from 
 Lrdinary, made her say, with even an miconacious touch 
 »f reverence in her voice, — " I wonder if I -hall bear it, 
 when it comes, as well as you I ' 
 
 " There 's a recompense," said Miss Craydocke. 
 "You'll have got it all then. You'll know there's 
 never a fifiy or a sixty years that does n't hold tho tens 
 and the twenties." 
 
102 A SUiUIEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 "I 've found out something," said Sin Saxon, as she 
 came back to the girls again. "A picked-up dinnei 
 argues a fresh one some time. You can't have cold roast 
 mutton unless it has once been hot ! " And never a 
 word more would she say to explain herasK. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 108 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE " little red " waa at the door of the Green Cot- 
 tage, frank Scherman had got the refusal of it the 
 night before, and early in the morning Madam Routh' 
 compliments had come to Mrs. Linceford, with the re- 
 quest, in all the form that mountain usage demanded, 
 that she and the young ladies would make part of the 
 expedition for the day. 
 
 Captain Jotham Green, host and proprietor, stood him- 
 self at the horses' heads. The Green Cottage, you per- 
 ceive, had double right to its appellation. It was both 
 baptismal and hereditary, surname and given name, — 
 given with a coat of fresh, pale, pea-green paint that had 
 been laid upon it within the year, and had communicated 
 a certain tender, newly-sprouted, May-morning expression 
 to the old centre and its outshoots. 
 
 Mrs. Green, within, was generously busy with biscuits, 
 cold chicken, doughnuts fried since sunrise, and coffee 
 richly compounded with cream and sugar, which a great 
 tin can stood waiting to receive and convey, and which 
 was at length to serve as cooking utensil in reheating 
 upon the fire of coals the picnickers would make up 
 under the very tassel of Feather-Cap. 
 
 The great wagons were drawn up also before the piazza 
 of the hotel ; and between the two houses flitted the 
 excursionists, full of the bright enthusiasm of the setting 
 off, which is the best part of a jaunt, invariably. 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite, in the hamadryad costume, just 
 
104 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLD THWAITE'S UFE. 
 
 aware — which it was impossible for her to help — of its 
 exceeding prettiness, and of glances that recognized it, 
 pleased with a mixture of pleasures, was on the surface of 
 things once more, taking the delight of the moment with 
 a young girl's innocent abandonment. It was nice to be 
 received so among all these new companions ; to be evi- 
 dently, though tacitly, voted nice, in the way girls have 
 of doing it ; to be launched at once into the beginning of 
 apparently exhaustless delights ; — all this was super- 
 added to the first and underlying joy of merely being 
 alive and breathing, this superb summer morning, among 
 these forests and hills. 
 
 Sin Saxon, whatever new feeling of half sympathy and 
 respect had been touched in her toward Miss Craydocke 
 the night before, in her morning mood was all alive again 
 to mischief. The small, spare figure of the lady appeared 
 at the side-door, coming out briskly toward them along 
 the passage, just as the second wagon filled up and was 
 ready to move. 
 
 I did not describe Miss Craydocke herself when I gave 
 you the glimpse into her room. There was not much to 
 describe ; and I forgot it in dwelling upon her surround- 
 ings and occupations. In fact, she extended herself into 
 these, and made you take them involuntarily and largely 
 into the account in your apprehension of her. Some 
 people seem to have given them at the outset a mere 
 germ of personality like this, which must needs widen 
 itself out in like fashion to be felt at all. Her mosses and 
 minerals, her pressed leaves and flowers, her odds and 
 ends of art and science and prettiness which she gathered 
 about her, her industries and benevolences, — these were 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 105 
 
 Hfcidelf. Out of these she was only a little elderly thread- 
 paper of a woman, of no apparent account among crowds 
 of other people, and with scarcely enough of bodily bulk 
 or presence to take any positive foothold anywhere. 
 
 What she might have seemed, in the days when her 
 hair was golden, and her little figure plump, and the very 
 unclassical features rounded and rosy with the bloom 
 and grace of youth, was perhaps another thing ; but now, 
 with her undeniable "front," and cheeks straightened 
 into lines that gave you the idea of her having slept all 
 night upon both of them, and got them into longitudinal 
 wrinkles that all day was never able to wear out ; above 
 all, with her curious little nose, (that was the exact 
 expression of it,) sharply and suddenly thrusting itself 
 among things in general from the middle plane of her 
 face with slight preparatory hint of its intention, — you 
 would scarcely charge her, upon suspicion, with any 
 embezzlement or making away of charms intrusted to her 
 keeping in the time gone by. 
 
 This morning, moreover, she had somehow given her- 
 self a scratch upon the tip of this odd, investigating mem- 
 ber ; and it blushed for its inquisitiveness under a scrap 
 of thin pink adhesive plaster. 
 
 Sin Saxon caught sight of her as she came. " Little 
 Miss Netticoat! " she cried, just under her breath. With 
 a fresh petticoat, and a led nose ! " — Then, changing 
 her tone with her quotation, — 
 
 '"Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower. 
 Thou 'st met me in a luckless hour ! ' 
 
 Thou always dost ! What hast thou gone and got thy- 
 self up so for, just as I was almost persuaded to be good? 
 
106 A SUM51EK IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFT 
 
 Now — can I help that? " And she dropped her fc.dea 
 hands in her lap, exhaled a httle sigh of vanquished 
 goodness, and looked round appealingly to her com- 
 panions. 
 
 " It 's only," said Miss Craydocke, reaching them a 
 trifle out of breath, "this little parcel, — something I 
 promised to Prissy Hoskins, — and would you just go 
 round by the Cliff and leave it for me ? " 
 
 " O, I 'm afraid of the Cliff! " cried Florrie Amall. 
 *• Creggin's horses backed there the other day. It 'a 
 horribly dangerous." 
 
 " It 's three quarters of a mile round," suggested the 
 driver. 
 
 " The « little red ' might take it. They '11 go faster 
 than we, or can, if they try," said Mattie Shannon. 
 
 "The 'little red''s just ready," said Sin Saxon. 
 "You need n't laugh. That was n't a pun. But O 
 Miss Craydocke ! " — and her tone suggested the mischiev- 
 ous apropos, — " what can you have been doing to your 
 nose?" 
 
 " O yes ! " — Miss Craydocke had a way of saying 
 " O yes ! " — " It was my knife slipped as I was cutting 
 a bit of cord, in a silly fashion, up toward my face It 's 
 a mercy my nose served to save my eyes." 
 
 "I suppose that's partly what noses are for," said 
 Sin Saxon, gravely. " Especially when you follow them, 
 and ' go it blind.' " 
 
 " It was a piece of good luck, too, after all," said Miss 
 Craydocke, in her simple way, never knowing, or choos- 
 ing to know, that she wms snubbed or quizzed. " Look- 
 ing for a bit of plaster, I found my little parcel of traga- 
 
A SUMMEE IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 107 
 
 canth that I wanted so the other day. It 's queer how 
 things turn up." 
 
 " Excessively queer," said Sin, solemnly, still looking 
 at the injured feature. " But as you say, it 's all for the 
 best, after all. ' There is a divinity that shapes our ends, 
 rough-how them how we will.' Hiram, we might as 
 well drive on. I '11 take the parcel. Miss Craydocke. 
 We '11 get it there somehow, going or coming." 
 
 The wagon rolled off, veils and feathers taking the wind 
 bravely, and making a gay moving picture against the 
 dark pines and gray ledges as it glanced along. Sin 
 Saxon tossed Miss Craydocke's parcel into the "little 
 red " as they passed it by, taking the road in advance, 
 giving a saucy word of command to Jim Holden, which 
 transferred the charge of its delivery to him, and calling 
 out a hurried explanation to the ladies over her shoulder 
 that " it would take them round the Cliff, — the most 
 wonderful point in all Outledge ; up and down the whole 
 length of New Hampshire they could see from there, if 
 their eyes were good enough ! " And so they were 
 away. 
 
 Miss Craydocke turned back into the house, not a whit 
 discomfited, and with not so much as a contrasting sigh 
 m her bosom or a rankle in her heart. On the contrary, 
 a droll twinkle played among the crow's-feet at the cor 
 ners of her eyes. They could not hurt her, these merry 
 girls, meaning nothing but the moment's fun, nor cheat 
 her of her quiet share of ihe fun either. 
 
 Up above, out of a window over the piazza roof, looked 
 two others, young girls, — one of them at least, — also, 
 jpon the scene of the settiug-ofF. 
 
108 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 I cannot help it that a good many different people will 
 get into mjSfehort story. They get into a short time, in 
 such a summer holiday, and so why not ? At any rate, 
 I must tell you about these Josselyns. 
 
 These two had never in all their lives been away pleas- 
 uring before. They had nobody but each other to come 
 with now. Susan had been away a good deal in the last 
 two years, but it had not been pleasuring. Martha was 
 some five or six years the younger. She had a pretty 
 face, yet marked, as it is so sad to see the faces of the 
 young, with lines and loss, — lines that tell of cares too 
 early felt, and loss of the first fresh, redundant bloom 
 that such lines bring. 
 
 They sat a great deal at this window of theirs. It 
 was a sort of instinct and habit with them, and it made 
 them happier than almost anything else, — sitting at a 
 window together. It was home to them, because at 
 home they lived so, — life and duty were so framed in 
 for them, — in one dear, old window-recess. Sometimes 
 they thought that it would be heaven to them by and 
 by. That such a seat, and such a quiet, happy outlook, 
 they should find kept for them together, in the Father's 
 mansion, up above. 
 
 At home, it was up three flights of stairs, in a tall, nar- 
 row city house, of which the lower floors overflowed with 
 young, boisterous half brothers and sisters, — the tide not 
 seldom rising and inundating their own retreat, — whose 
 delicate mother, not more than eight years older than her 
 eldest step-daughter, was tied hand and foot to her nur- 
 sery, with a baby on her lap, and the two or three next 
 above with hands always to be washed, disputes and 
 
k SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 109 
 
 amusements always to be settled, small morals to be 
 enforced, and clean calico tyers to be incess«ntly put on. 
 
 And Susan and Martha sat up stairs and made the 
 tyers. 
 
 Mr. Josselyn was a book-keeper, with a salary of eigh- 
 teen hundred dollars, and these seven children. And 
 Susan and Martha were girls of fair culture, and wom- 
 anly tastes, and social longings. How does this seem to 
 you, young ladies, and what do you think of their up- 
 stairs life together, you who calculate, if you calculate at 
 all, whether five hundred dollars may carry you respect- 
 ably through your half-dozen city assemblies, where you 
 shine in silk and gossamer, of which there will not be " a 
 dress in the room that cost less than seventy-five dol- 
 lars," and come home, after the dance, " a perfect rag " ? 
 
 Two years ago, when you were perhaps performing in 
 tableaux for the "benefit of the Sanitary," these two 
 girls had felt the great enthusiasm of the time lay hold of 
 them in a larger way. Susan had a friend — a dear old 
 intimate of school-days, now a staid woman of eight-and- 
 twenty — who was to go out in yet maturer companion- 
 ship into the hospitals. And Susan's heart burned to go. 
 But there were all the little tyers, and the A B C's, 
 and the faces and fingers. 
 
 "I can do it for a while,' said Martha, " without you." 
 Those two words held the sacrifice. " Mamma is so nicely 
 this summer, and by and by Aunt Lucy may come, per- 
 haps. I can do quite well." 
 
 So Martha sat, for months and months, in the up- 
 stairs window alone. There were martial marchings in 
 the streets beneath; great guns thundered out rejoicings; 
 
110 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 flags filled the air with crimson and blue, like an aurora, 
 she only sat and made little frocks and tyers for the broth- 
 ers and sisters. God knew how every patient needle- 
 thrust was really also a woman's blow for her country. 
 
 And now, pale and thin witli close, lonely work, the 
 time had come to her at last when it was right to take a 
 respite ; when everybody said it must be ; when Uncle 
 David, just home from Japan, had put his hand in his 
 pocket and pulled out three new fifty-dollar bills, and 
 said to them in his rough way, " There, girls ; take that, 
 and go your lengths." The war was over, and among all 
 the rest here were these two women-soldiers honorably 
 discharged, and resting after the fight. But nobody at 
 Outledge knew anything of the story. 
 
 There is almost always at every summer sojourn some 
 party of persons who are to the rest what the mid-current 
 Is to the stream ; who gather to themselves and bear along 
 in their course — in their plans and pleasures and daily 
 doings — tne force of all the life of the place. If any 
 expedition of consequence is afoot, they are the expedi- 
 tion ; others may join in, or hold aloof, or be passed by ; 
 in which last cases, it is only in a feeble, rippling fashion 
 that they go their ways and seek some separate pleasure 
 in by-nooks and eddies, while the gay hum of the main 
 channel goes whirling on. At Outledge, this party wag 
 the large and merry school-girl company with Madam 
 Routh. 
 
 " I don't see why," said Martha Josselyn, still looking 
 out, as thfe " little red " left the door of the Green Cot- 
 tage, — " 1 dDn't see why those new girls who came last 
 night should have got into everything in a minute, and 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. Ill 
 
 we 're been here a week and don't seem to catch to any- 
 thing at all. Some people are like burs, I think, or drops 
 of quicksilver, that always bunch or run together. We 
 don't stick, Susie. What 's the reason ? " 
 
 " Some of these young ladies have been at Madam 
 Routh's ; they were over here last evening. Sin Saxon 
 knows them very well." 
 
 " You knew Effie Saxon at school, too." 
 
 " Eight years ago. And this is the little one. That *s 
 nothing. 
 
 " You petted her, and she came to the house. You ' ve 
 told her stories hundreds of times. And she sees we 're 
 all by ourselves." 
 
 " She don't see. She does n't think. That 's just the 
 whole of it." 
 
 " People ought to see, then. You would, Sue, and you 
 know it." 
 
 " I 've been used to seeing — and thinking." 
 
 " Used 1 Yes, indeed I And she 's been used to the 
 other. Well, it 's queer how the parts are given out. 
 Shall we go to the pines ? " 
 
 A great cliff-side rearing itself up, rough with inacces- 
 sible crags, bristling with old, ragged pines, and dark 
 with glooms of close cedars and hemlocks, above a jut- 
 ting table of rock that reaches out and makes a huge 
 Bemicircular base for the mountain, and is in itself a 
 precipice-pedestal eighty feet sheer up from the river- 
 bank. Close in against the hill-front, on this platform 
 of stone, that holds its foot or two of soil, a little, poor 
 nnshingled house, with a tumble-down picket -fence about 
 
112 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 it, attempting the indispensable door-yard of all better 
 country-dwellings here where the great natural door-yard 
 or esplanade makes it such an utter nonsense. This ia 
 the place at which the " little red " drew up, ten minutes 
 later, to leave Prissy Hoskins's parcel. 
 
 Dakie Thayne jumped down off the front seat, and hela 
 up his arms to help Leslie out over the wheel, upon her 
 declaring that she must go and do the errand herself, to 
 get a nearer look at Hoskins life. 
 
 Dakie Thayne had been asked, at Leslie's suggestion, 
 to fill the vacant sixth seat beside the driver, the Thoresbys 
 one and all declining. Mrs. Thoresby was politic : she 
 would not fall into the wake of this school-girl party at 
 once. By and by she should be making up her own 
 excursions, and asking whom she would. 
 
 " There 's nothing like a boy of that age for use upon a 
 picnic, Mrs. Linceford," Leslie had pleaded, with playful 
 parody, in his behalf, when the lady had hinted something 
 of her former sentiment concerning the encroachments 
 and monopolies of " boys of that age." And so he came. 
 
 The Haddens got Jim Holden to lift them down on the 
 opposite side, for a run to the verge of the projecting half- 
 circle of rock that, like a gigantic bay-window or balcony 
 jn the mighty architecture of the hills, looked up and down 
 the whole perspective of the valley. Jim Holden would 
 readily have driven them round its very edge upon the 
 flat, mossy sward, but for Mrs. Linceford's nerves, and 
 the vague idea of ahnost an accident having occurred 
 there lately which pervaded the little party. " Creggin's 
 horses had backed," as Plorrie Arnall saidj and already 
 the new-comers had picked up, they scarcely knew how 
 
A SUMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 113 
 
 Ihe incipient tradition, hereafter to grow into an established 
 horror of the " Cliff." 
 
 " It was nothing," Jim Holden said ; " only the nigh 
 hoss was a res'less crittur, an' contrived to git his leg 
 over the pole ; no danger with Ms cattle." But Mrs. 
 Linceford cried out in utter remonstrance, and only 
 begged Leslie to be quick, that they might get away 
 from the place altogether. 
 
 All this bustle of arrival and discussion and alight- 
 ing had failed, curiously, to turn the head of an odd, un- 
 kempt-looking child, a girl of nine or ten, with an old calico 
 Bun-bonnet flung back upon her shoulders, — tangled, 
 sun-burnt hair tossing above it, — gown, innocent of 
 crinoline, clinging to lank, growing limbs, — and bare 
 feet, whose heels were energetically planted at a quite 
 safe distance from each other, to insure a fair base for the 
 centre of gravity, — who, at the moment of their coming, 
 was wrathftilly " shoo-ing " off from a bit of rnde toy- 
 garden, fenced with ends of twigs stuck upright, a tall 
 Shanghae hen and her one chicken, who had evidently 
 made nothing, morally or physically, of the feeble en- 
 closure. 
 
 " I wish you were dead and in your grav-ies ! " cried 
 the child, achieving, between her righteous indignation and 
 her relenting toward her uncouth pets at the last breath, 
 a sufficiently queer play upon her own word. And with 
 this, the enemy being routed, she turned face to face with 
 Dakie Thayne and Leslie Gddthwaite, coming in at the 
 dilapidated gater ". 
 
 " They 've scratched up all my four-o'clocks ! " she 
 laid. And then her rustic shyness overcame suddenly 
 
 a 
 
114 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 r11 else, and she dragged her great toe back and forth is 
 the soft mould, and put her forefinger in her mouth, and 
 looked askance at them from the corners of her ej'es. 
 
 " Prissy ? Prissy Hoskins ? " Leslie addressed her in 
 Bweet, inquiring tones. But the child stood still with 
 finger in mouth, and toe working in the ground, not a bit 
 harder nor faster, nor changing in the least, for more jr 
 less, the shy look in her face. 
 
 " That 's your name, is n't it ? I 've got something 
 for you. Won't you come and get it ? " Leslie paused, 
 waiting, — fearing lest a further advance on her own part 
 might put Prissy altogether to flight. Nothing answered 
 in the girl's eyes to her words ; there was no lighting up 
 of desire or curiosity, however restrained ; she stood like 
 one indifferent or uncomprehending. 
 
 " She 's awful deef ! " cried a new voice from the door- 
 way. " She ain't that scared. She 's sarcy enough, some- 
 times." 
 
 A woman, middle-aged or more, stood on the rough, 
 slanting door-stone. She had bare feet, in coarse calf- 
 skin slippers, stringy petticoats differing only from the 
 child's in length, sleeves rolled up to the shoulders, no 
 neck garniture, — not a bit of anything white about her. 
 Over all looked forth a face sharp and hard, that might 
 have once been good-looking, in a raw, country fashion, 
 and that had undoubtedly always been, what it now 
 was, emphatically Yankee-smart. An inch-wide stripe of 
 black hair was combed each way over her forehead, and 
 rolled up on her temples in what, years and years ago, 
 used to be called most appropriately "flat curls," — -these 
 fastened with long horn sldecombs. Beyond was a strip 
 
A STJMMF* m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 115 
 
 of desert, — no hair at all for an inch and a half more 
 toward the crown ; the rest dragged back and tied be- 
 hind with the relentless tightness that gradually and regu- 
 larly, by the persistence of years, had accomplished this 
 peculiar belt of clearing. It completed her expression ; 
 it was as a very halo of Yankee saintship crowning the 
 woman who in despite of poverty and every discourage- 
 ment had always hated, to the very roots of her hair, any- 
 thing like what she called a " sozzle," — who had always 
 been screwed up and sharp set to hard work. She could n't 
 help the tumble-down fence ; she had no " men-folks " 
 round ; and she could n't have paid for a hundred pickets 
 and a day's carpentering, to have saved her life. She 
 could n't help Prissy's hair even ; for it would kink and 
 curl, and the minute the- wind took it "there it was 
 again " ; and it was not time yet, thank goodness ! to 
 harrow it back and begin in her behalf the remarkable 
 engineering which had laid out for herself that broad 
 highway across all the thrifty and energetic bumps up to 
 Veneration, (who knows how much it had had to do with 
 mixing them in one common tingle of mutual and unceas- 
 mg activity ?) and down again from ear to ear. Inside 
 the poor little house you would find all spick and span ; 
 the old floor white and sanded, the few tins and the pew- 
 ter spoons shining upon the shelf, the brick hearth and 
 jambs aglow with fresh " redding," table and chairs set 
 back in rectangular tidiness. Only one thing made a lit- 
 ter, or tried to ; a yellow canary that hung in the window 
 and sang "like a house afire," as Aunt Hoskins said, 
 however that is, and flung his seeds about hke the old 
 •Wash at Edmonton," " n both sides of the way.' 
 
116 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Prissy was turned out of doors in all pleasant weather . 
 no otherwise the keeping-room stayed trim, and her curly 
 hair grew sunburnt. 
 
 " She 's ben deef ever sence she hed the scarlet-fever. 
 Walk in," said the woman, by no means satisfied to let 
 strangers get only the outside impression of her premises, 
 and turning round to lead the way without waiting for a 
 reply. " Come in. Prissy ! " she bawled, illustrating her 
 summons with what might be called a beckoning in broad 
 capitals, done with the whole arm from finger-tips to 
 shoulder, twice or thrice. 
 
 Leslie followed over the threshold, and Prissy ran hv 
 like a squirrel, and perched herself on a stool just undei 
 the bird-cage. 
 
 " I would n't keep it if 't warn't for her," said Aunt 
 Hoskins, apologetically. She was Prissy's aunt, holding 
 no other close domestic relation to living thmg, and so had 
 come to be " Aunt Hoskins " in the whole region round 
 about, so far as she was known at all. " It 's the only 
 bird she can hear sing of a morning. It 's as good as all 
 out-doors to her, and I haint the heart to make her do 
 without it. I 've done without most things, but it don't 
 appear to me as if I could do without them. Take a seat, 
 do." 
 
 " I thank you, but my friends are waiting. I 've brough 
 something for Prissy, from Miss Craydoche at the ho- 
 tel." And Leslie held out the package which Dakie 
 Thf yne, waiting at the door, had put into her hand m 
 she came in. 
 
 " Lawful suz! Prissy 1 if 't ain't another book!" crie(} 
 the good woman, as Prissy, quick to divine the meaning 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 117 
 
 of the parcel, the Hke of which she had been made accus- 
 tomed to before, sprang to her aunt's side within hearing 
 of her exclamation. " If she ain't jest the feelingest and 
 thoughtfullest — Well I open it yourself, child ; there 's 
 no good of a bundle if you don't." 
 
 Poor Prissy was thus far happy that she had not been 
 left in the providence of her little life to utter ignorance 
 of this greatest possible delight — a common one to more 
 outwardly favored children — of a real parcel all one's own. 
 The book, without the brown paper and string, would have 
 been as nothing, comparatively. 
 
 Leslie could not but linger to see it untied. There came 
 out a book, — a wonderful big book, — Grimm's Tales ; and 
 some little papers fell to the floor. These were flower- 
 Beeds,— bags labelled "Petunia," "Candytuft," "Double 
 Balsam," " Portulaca." 
 
 " Why, Prissy I " shouted Miss Hoskins in her ear as 
 she picked them up, and read the names ; " them 's ele- 
 gant things I They '11 beat your fbur-o'clocks all to 
 notbin'. It's lucky the old Shank-high did make a 
 clearin' of 'em. Tell Miss Craydocke," she continued, 
 turning again to Leslie, " that I 'm comin' down myself, 
 to — no, I can't thank her! She's made a life for that 
 lit child, out o' nothin', a'most 1 " 
 
 Leslie stood hushed and penetrated in the presence of 
 this good deed, and the joy and gratitude born of it. 
 
 " This ain't all, you see ; nor 't ain't nothin' new. 
 She's ben at it these two year; leamin' the child to 
 read, an' tellin' her things, an' settin' her to hunt 'em 
 out, ana to do for herself. She was crazy about flowers, 
 allers, an' stories ; but, lor, I could n't stop to tell 'em to 
 
118 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 her, an' I never knew but one or two ; an' now she can 
 read 'em off to me, like a minister. She 's told her a lot 
 o' stuff about the rocks, — J can't make head nor tail 
 on 't ; but it 'ud please you to see her fetchin' 'em in by 
 the apern-full, an' goin' on about 'em, that is, if there was 
 reely any place to put 'em afterwards. That 's the wust 
 on 't. I tell you, it is jest makin' a life out o' pieces that 
 come to hand. Here 's the girl, an' tliere 's the woods an' 
 rocks ; there 's all there was to do with, or likely to be ; 
 but she found the gumption an' the willingness, an' she 's 
 done it 1 " 
 
 Prissy came close over to Leslie with her book in her 
 hand. " Wait a minute," she said, with the effort in her 
 tone peculiar to the deaf. " I 've got something to send 
 back." 
 
 "^it's convenient, j'^ou mean,' put in Aunt Hos- 
 kins, sharply. "She's as blunt as a broomstick — that 
 child is." 
 
 But Prissy had sprung away in her squirrel-like fashion, 
 and now came back, bringing with her something really to 
 make one's eyes water, if one happened, at least, to be 
 ever so little of a geologist, — a mass of quartz rock as 
 large as she could grasp with her two hands, shot through 
 at three different angles with three long, superb, columnar 
 crystals of clear, pale-green beryl. If Professor Dana 
 had known this exact locality, and a more definite name 
 for the " Cliff," would n't he have had it down in his 
 Supplement with half a dozen exclamation-points after 
 the "beryl"! 
 
 " I found it a-purpose ! " said Prissy, with the utmosi 
 jimpiicity, putting the heavy specimen out of her own 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 119 
 
 nands into Leslie's. •' She 's been a-wantin' it this great 
 while, and we 've looked for it everywheres ! " 
 
 " A-purpose " it did seem as if the magnificent frag- 
 ment had been laid in the way of the child's zealous and 
 grateful search. " There were only the rocks," as Aunt 
 Hoskins said ; in no other way could she so joyously have 
 acknowledged the kindness that had brightened now three 
 summers of her life. 
 
 " It '11 bother you, I 'm afeard," said the woman. 
 
 " No, indeed I I shall like to take it for you," continued 
 Leslie, with a warm earnestness, stooping down to the lit- 
 tle girl, and speaking in her clear, glad tone close to her 
 cheek. " I only wish J could find something to take her 
 myself." And with that, close to the little red-brown 
 cheek as she was, she put the period of a quick kiss to 
 her words. 
 
 " Come again, and we '11 hunt for some together," said 
 the child, with instant response of cordiality. 
 
 "I will come — if I possibly can," was Leslie's last 
 word, and then she and Dakie Thayne hurried back to 
 the wagon. 
 
 The Haddens had just got in again upon their side. 
 They were full of exclamations about the wonderful view 
 np and down the long valley-reaches. 
 
 "You needn't tell me!" cried Elinor, in high enthu- 
 siasm. "I don't care a bit for the geography of it. 
 That great aisle goes straight from Lake Umbagog to 
 the Sound!" 
 
 " It is a glorious picture," said Mrs. Linceford. " But 
 I 've had a little one, that you 've lOSt. You 've no idea, 
 Leslie, what a lovely tableau you have been making, — 
 
120 SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 you and Dakie, with that old woman and the blowsj 
 child ! " 
 
 Leslie blushed. 
 
 " You '11 never ook prettier, if you try ever so hard." 
 
 " Don't, Mrs. Linceford 1 " 
 
 " Why not ? " said Jeannie. " It 's only a pity, I think, 
 that you could n't have known it at the time. They say 
 we don't know when we 're happiest ; and we canH know 
 when we 're prettiest ; so where 's the satisfaction ? " 
 
 " That 's part of your mistake, Jeannie, perhaps," re- 
 turned her sister. " If you had been there you 'd have 
 spoiled the picture." 
 
 " Look at that ! " exclaimed Leslie, showing her beryl. 
 " That 's for Miss Craydocke." And then, when the first 
 utterances of amazement and admiration were over, she 
 told them the story of the child, and her misfortune, and 
 of what Miss Craydocke had done. " That 's beautiful, 
 I think," said she. " And it 's the sort of beauty, may be, 
 that one might feel as one went along. I wish I could 
 find — a diamond — for that woman I " 
 
 "Thir garnits on Feather-Cap," put in Jim the driver. 
 
 " O, will you show us where ? " 
 
 " Well, 't ain't nowhers in partickler," replied Jim. 
 "It's jest as you light on 'em. And you would n't 
 know the best ones when you did. I 've seen 'em, — 
 dead, dull-lookin' round stones that '11 crack open chock 
 fill! o' red garnits, as an egg is o' meat." 
 
 " Geodes ! " cried Dakie Thayne. 
 
 Jim Holden turned round and looked at him as if he 
 thought he had got hold of some new-fashioned expletive 
 — possibly a pretty hard one. 
 
A oUMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 121 
 
 They came down, now, on the other side of the Ohff, 
 ind struck the ford. This diverted and absorbed their 
 thoughts, for none of the ladies had ever forded a river 
 before. 
 
 " Are you sure it 's safe ? " asked Mrs. Linceford. 
 
 " Safe as meetin'," returned Jim. " I 'd drive acrosg 
 with my eyes shot." 
 
 *' O, don't I " cried Elinor. 
 
 "I ain't agoin' ter ; but I could, — an' the hosses 
 too, for that matter." 
 
 It was exciting, nevertheless, when the water in mid- 
 channel came up nearly to the body of the wagon, and 
 the swift ripples deluded the eye into almost conviction 
 that horses, vehicle, and all were gaining not an inch in 
 forward progress, but drifting surely down. They came 
 up out of the depths, however, with a tug, and a swash, 
 and a drip all over, and a scrambling of hoofs on the peb- 
 bles, at the very point aimed at in such apparently side- 
 long fashion, — the wheel-track that led them up the 
 bank and into the ten-mile pine-woods through which 
 they were to skirt the base of the Cairn and reach Feath- 
 er-Cap on his accessible side. It was one long fragrance 
 and stillness and shadow. 
 
 They overtook the Routh party at the beginning of 
 the mountain-path. The pine-woods stretched on over 
 the gradual slope, as far as they would climb before din- 
 ner. Otherwise the midday heats would have been too 
 much for them. This was the easy part of the way, and 
 there was breath for chat and merriment. 
 
 Jusl within the upper edge of the woods, in a compara- 
 tively smooth opening, they halted. Here they spread 
 
122 A SUMMEE m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 their picnic ; while up above, on the hare, open rock, the 
 yonng men kindled their fire, and heated the coffee ; and 
 here they ate and drank, and rested through the noon- 
 tide. 
 
 Light clouds flitted between the mountains and the 
 heavens, later in the day, and flung bewildering, dreamy 
 shadows on the far-off steeps, and dropped a gracious veil 
 over the bald forehead and sun-bleak shoulders of Feath- 
 er-Cap. It was " weather just made for them," as for- 
 tunate excursionists are wont to say. 
 
 Sin Saxon was all life, and spring, and fun. She 
 climbed at least three Feather-Caps, dancing from stone 
 to stone with tireless feet, and bounding back and forth 
 with every gay word that it occurred to her to say to 
 anybody. Pictures ? She made them incessantly. She 
 was a living dissolving view. You no sooner got one 
 bright look or graceful attitude than it was straightway 
 shifted into another. She kept Frank Scherman at her 
 side for the flrst half-hour, and then, perhaps, his admira- 
 tion or his muscles tired, for he fell back a little to help 
 Madam Routh up a sudden ridge, and afterwards, some- 
 how, merged himself in the quieter group of strangers. 
 
 By and by one of the Arnalls whispered to Mattie 
 Shannon. " He 's sidled off with her, at last. Did you 
 ever know such a fellow for a new face ? But it 's partly 
 the petticoat. He 's such an artist's eye for color. He 
 was raving about her all the while she stood hanging 
 those shawls among the pines to keep the wind from Mrs. 
 Linceford. She is n't downright pietty either. But 
 she *8 got up exquisitely ! " 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite, in her lovely moantaio-oress, hel 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 123 
 
 bright bloom from enjoyment and exercise, with the 
 stray light through the pines burnishing the bronze of 
 her hair, had innocently made a second picture, it would 
 seem. One such effects deeper impression, sometimes, 
 than the confusing splendor of incessant changes. 
 
 " Are you looking for something ? Can I help you ? " 
 Frank Scherman had said, coming up to her, as she and 
 her friend Dakie, a little apart from the others, were 
 poking among some loose pebbles. 
 
 " Nothing that I have lost," Leslie answered, smiling. 
 " Something I have a very presumptuous wish to find. 
 A splendid garnet geode, if you please ! " 
 
 " That 's not at all impossible," returned the young 
 man. " We '11 have it before we go down, — see if we 
 don't ! " 
 
 Frank Scherman knei* a good deal abou<' Feather-Cap, 
 and something of geologizing. So he and liCslie — Da- 
 kie Thayne, in his unswerving devotion, still accompany- 
 ing — " sidled off" together, took a long turn round 
 under the crest, talking very pleasantly — and restfuUy, 
 after Sin Saxon's continuous brilliancy — all the way. 
 How they searched among loose drift under the cliff, — 
 how Mr. Scherman improvised a hammer from a slice of 
 'ock, — and how, after many imperfect specimens, they 
 did at last " find a-purpose " an irregular oval of dull, 
 dusky stone, which burst with a stroke into two chalices 
 of incrusted crimson crystals, — I ought to be too near 
 the end of a long chapter to tell. But this search, and 
 this finding, and the motive of it, were the soul and the 
 irown of Leslie's pleasure for the day. She did not even 
 rtop to think how long she had had Frank Scherman'i 
 
124 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 attention all to herself, or the triumph that it was in the 
 eyes of the older girls, among whom he was excessively 
 admired, and not very disguisedly competed for. She 
 did not know how fast she was growing to be a sort of 
 admiration herself among them, in their girls' fashion, or 
 what she might do, if she chose, in the way of small, 
 early belleship here at Outledge with such beginning, — 
 how she was " getting on," in short, as girls express it. 
 And so, as Jeannie Hadden asked, " Where was the sat- 
 isfaction ? " 
 
 " You never knew anything like it," said Jeannie to 
 her friend Ginevra, talking it all over with her that even- 
 ing in a bit of a visit to Mrs. Thoresby's room. " I never 
 saw anybody take so among strangers. Madam Routh 
 was delighted with her ; and so, I should think, was Mr. 
 Scherman. They say he hates trouble ; but he took her 
 all round. the top of the mountain, hammering stones for 
 her to find a geode." 
 
 " That 's the newest dodge," said Mrs. Thoresby, with 
 a little sarcastic laugh. " Girls of that sort are always 
 looking for geodes." After this, Mrs. Thoresby had 
 always a little well-bred venom for Leslie Goldthwaite. 
 
 At the same time, Leslie herself, coming out on the 
 piazza for a moment after tea, met Miss Craydocke ap- 
 proaching over the lawn. She had only her errand to 
 introduce her, but she would not lose the opportunity. 
 She went straight up to the little woman, in a frank, 
 Bweet way. But a bit of embarrassment underneath, the 
 real respect that made her timid, perhaps a little nervous 
 fatigue after the excitement and exertion of the day, did 
 what nerves and embarrassment, and reverence itself 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 125 
 
 ftJH do sometimes, — played a trick with her perfectly 
 clear thought on its way to her tongue. 
 
 " Miss Graywacke, I believe ? " she said, and instantly 
 knew the dreadful thing that she had done. 
 
 " Exactly," said the lady, with an amused little smile. 
 
 " O, I do beg your pardon," began Leslie, blushing all 
 over. 
 
 " No need, — no need. Do you think I don't know 
 what name I go by, behind my back ? They suppose 
 because I 'm old and plain and single, and wear a front, 
 and don't understand rats and the German, that I 'm 
 deat' and blind and stupid. But I believe I get as much 
 as they do out of their jokes, after all." The dear old 
 soul took Leslie by both her hands as she spoke, and 
 looked a whole world of gentle benignity at her out of 
 two soft gray eyes, and then she laughed again. This 
 woman had no self to be hurt. 
 
 " We stopped at the Cliff this morning," Leslie tool 
 heart to say ; " and they were so glad of your parcel, — 
 the little girl and her aunt. And Prissy gave me some- 
 thing to bring back to you, — a splendid specimen of 
 beryl that she has found." 
 
 " Then my mind 's at rest ! " said Miss Craydoekt, 
 cheerier than ever. " I was sure she 'd break her neck, 
 i<r pull the mountain down on her head some day looking 
 for it." 
 
 " Would you like — I 've found — I should like you to 
 nave that too, — a garnet geode from Feather-Cap ? " 
 Leslie thought she had done it very clumsily, and in a 
 hurry, after all. 
 
 " WUl you come over to my little room, dear, — nura- 
 
126 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 ber fifteen, in the west wing, — to-morrow some time, 
 witli your stones ? I want to see more of you." 
 
 There was a deliberate, gentle emphasis upon her 
 words. If the grandest person of whom she had ever 
 known had said to Leslie Goldthwaite, " I want to see 
 more of you," she would not have heard it with a warmei 
 thnU than «he felt that moment a . her heart. 
 
A SmiUEB Di LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 127 
 
 VIII. 
 
 IT was a glorious July morning, and there was nothing 
 particular on foot. In the afternoon, there would be 
 drives and walks, perhaps ; for some hours, now, there 
 jvould be intensifying heat. The sun had burned away 
 every cloud that had hung rosy about his rising, and the 
 great gray flanks of Washington glared in a pale scorch 
 close up under the sky, whose blue fainted in the flooding 
 presence of the full white light of such unblunted day. 
 Here and there, adown his sides, something flashed out 
 in a clear, intense dazzle, like an enormous crystal crop- 
 ping from the granite, and blazing with reflected splen- 
 dor. These were the leaps of water from out dark rifts 
 into the sun. 
 
 " Everybody will be in the pines to-day," said Martha 
 Josselyn. " I think it is better when they all go off and 
 leave us." 
 
 " We can go up under our rock," said Sue, putting 
 stockings and mending cotton into a large, light basket. 
 " Have you got the chess-board ? What should we dc 
 without our mending-day ? " 
 
 These two girls had bought new stockings for all the 
 little feet at home, that the weekly darning might be less 
 for the mother while they were away ; and had come 
 with their own patiently-cared-for old hose, " which they 
 sho'jld have nothing else to do but to embroider." 
 
 They had made a sort of holiday, in their fashion, of 
 mending-day at home, till it had come to seem like a pos- 
 
128 A SUSIMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITU'S LIFE. 
 
 jtive treat and rest ; and the habit was so strong upon 
 them that they hailed it even here. They always got out 
 their little chess-board, when they sat down to the big 
 basket together. They could darn, and consider, and 
 move, and darn again ; and so could keep it up all day 
 long, as else even they would have found it nearly intol- 
 erable to do. So, though they seemed slower at it, they 
 really in the end saved time. Thursday night saw the 
 tedious work all done, and the basket piled with neatly 
 folded pairs, like a heap of fine white roUs. This was a 
 great thing, and " enough for one day," as Mrs. Josselyn 
 said. It was disastrous if they once began to lie over. 
 If they could be disposed of between sun and sun, the 
 girls were welcome to any play they could get out of it. 
 
 " There they go, those two together. Always to the 
 pmes, and always with a work-basket," said Leslie Grold- 
 thwaite, sitting on the piazza step at the Green Cottage, 
 by Mrs. Linceford's feet, the latter lady occupying a 
 Shaker rocking-chair behind. " What nice girls they 
 seem to be, — and nobody appears to know them much, 
 beyond a ' good morning ! ' " 
 
 " Henny-penny, Goosie-poosie, Turkey-lurky, Ducky- 
 daddies, and Chicken Little ! " said Mrs. Linceford, 
 counting up from thumb to little finger. " Dakie Thayne 
 and Miss Craydocke, Marmaduke Wharne and these 
 two, — they just make it out," she continued, counting 
 back again. " Whatever you do, Les, don't make up to 
 VoTS. Lox at last, for all our sakes ! " 
 
 Out came Dakie Thayne, at this point, upon them, 
 with his hands full. " Miss Leslie, could you head these 
 needles for mo with black wax ? I want them tor uij 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 129 
 
 butterflies, and I 've made such a daub and scald of it I 
 I 've blistered three fingers, and put lop-sided heads tc 
 two miserable pins, and left no end of wax splutters on 
 my table. I have n't but two sticks more, and the dea- 
 con don't keep any ; I must try to get a dozen pins out 
 of it, at least." He had his sealing-wax and a lighted 
 " homespun candle," as Leslie called the dips of Mrs. 
 Green's manufacture, in one hand, and a pincushion 
 stuck full of needles waiting for tops, in the other. 
 
 " I told you so," said Mrs. Linceford to Leslie. 
 " That 's it, then ? " she asked of Dakie Thayne. 
 
 « What, ma'am ? " 
 
 " Butterflies. I knew you 'd some hobby or other, — I 
 said so. I 'm glad it 's no worse," she answered, in her 
 pleasant, smiling way. Dakie Thayne had a great lik- 
 ing for Mrs. Linceford, but he adored Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite. 
 
 " I 'd like to show them to you, if you 'd care," he 
 said. " I 've got some splendid ones. One great Tur- 
 nus, that I brought with me in the chrysalis, that hatched 
 out while I was at Jefferson. I rolled it up in a paper 
 for the journey, and fastened it in the crown of my hat. 
 I 've had it ever since last fall. The asterias worms are 
 spinning now, — the early ones. They 're out on the 
 carrot-tops in shoals. I 'm feeding up a dozen of 'em in 
 a box. They 're very handsome, — bright green with 
 black and yellow spots, — and it 's the queerest thing to 
 Bee them stiffen out and change.' 
 
 " Can you ? Do they do it all at once ? " asked Etty 
 Thoresby, slipping into the rocking-chair, as Mrs. Lince- 
 ford, by whom she had come and placed herself within 
 
 6» 1 
 
130 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 the last minute, rose and went in to follow her laundress, 
 just then going up the stairs with her basket. 
 
 " Pretty much. It seems so. The first thing you know 
 they stick themselves up by their tails, and spin a noose to 
 hang back their heads in, and there they are, like a pap- 
 poose in a basket. Then their skin turns a queer, dead, 
 ashy color, and grows somehow straight and tight, and 
 they only squirm a little in a feeble way now and then, 
 and grow stifier and stiffer, till they can't squirm at all, 
 and then they 're mummies, and that 's the end of it tiU 
 the butterflies are born. It 's a strange thing to see a live 
 creature go into its own shroud, and hang itself up to turn 
 into a corpse. Sometimes a live one, crawling round to 
 find a place for itself, will touch a mummy accidentally ; 
 and then, when they 're not quite gone, I 've seen 'em 
 give an odd little quiver, under the shell, as if they were 
 almost at peace, and did n't want to be intruded on, or 
 called back to earthly things, and the new-comer takes the 
 hint, and respects privacy, and moves himself ofiF to find 
 quarters somewhere else. Miss Leslie, how splendidly 
 you 're doing those ! What 's the difference, I wonder, 
 between girls' fingers and boys' ? I could n't make those 
 atoms of balls so round and perfect, ' if I died and suf- 
 fered,' as Miss Hoskins says." 
 
 " It 's only centrifugal force," said Leslie, spinning 
 round between her finger and thumb a needle to whose 
 head she had just touched a globule of the bright black 
 wax. "The world and a pin-head, — both made on the 
 same principle." 
 
 The Haddens and Imogen Thoresby strolled along to 
 gether, and added themselves to the group. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE. 131 
 
 " Let 's go over to the hotel, Leslie. We 've seen 
 aothuig of the gu'ls since just after breakfast. They 
 must be up in the hall, arranging about the tableaux." 
 
 " 1 '11 come by and by, if you want me ; don t wait. 
 I'm going to finish these — properly"; and she dippea 
 and twirled another needle with dainty precision, in the 
 pause between her words. 
 
 " Have you got a 1 it of brothers at home, Miss Leshe ? " 
 asked Dakie Thayne. 
 
 " Two," replied Leslie. " Not at home, though, now. 
 One at Exeter, and the other at Cambridge. Why ? " 
 
 " I was thinking it would be bad — what do you call 
 it — political economy or something, if you had n't any, 
 that's all." 
 
 " Mamma wants you," said Ginevra Thoresby, looking 
 out at the door to call her sisters. " She 's in the Haught- 
 leys' room. They 're talking about the wagon for Minster 
 Rock to-night. What do you take up your time with that 
 boy for?" she added, not inaudibly, as she and Imogen 
 turned away together. 
 
 " O dear ! " cried blunt Etty, lingering, " I wonder if 
 «he meant me. I want to hear about the caterpillars. 
 Mamma thinks the Haughtleys are such nice people, 
 because they came in their own carriage, and they 've 
 got such big trunks, and a saddle-horse, and elegant 
 dressing-cases, and ivory-backed brushes I I wish she 
 did n't care so about such things." 
 
 Mrs. Thoresby would have been shocked to hear her 
 little daughter's arrangement and version of her ideas. 
 She had simply been kind to tnese strangers on their 
 Brrival — in their own comfortable carriage — a few dayn 
 
132 A SUMMEK IN LKSLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 since; had stepped forward, — as somehow It seemed te 
 devolve upon her, with her dignified air and handsome 
 gray curls, when she chose, to do, — representing by a 
 kind of tacit consent the household in general, as somebody 
 in every such sojourn usually will ; had interested herself 
 about their rooms, which were near her own, and had 
 reported of them, privately, among other things noted in 
 these first glimpses, that " they had everything about 
 them in the most perfect style ; ivory-backed brushes, 
 and lovely inlaid dressing-cases, Ginevra; the best all 
 through, and no sham ! " ^Yes indeed, if that could but 
 be said truly, and need not stop at brushes and boxes !/ 
 
 Imogen came back presently, and called to Etty from 
 the stairs, and she was obliged to go. Jeannie Hadden 
 waited till they were fairly off the landing, and then 
 walked away herself, saying nothing, but wearing, a 
 slightly displeased air. 
 
 Mrs. Thoresby and her elder daughter had taken a sort 
 of dislike to Dakie Thayne. They seemed to think he 
 wanted putting down. Nobody knew anything about 
 him ; he was well enough in his place, perhaps ; but why 
 should he join himself to their party ? The Routh girls 
 had Frank Scherman, and two or three other older at- 
 tendants; among them he was simply not thought of, 
 often, at all. If it had not been for Leslie and Mrs. 
 Linceford, he would have found himself in Outledge, 
 what boys of his age are apt to find themselves in the 
 world at large, — a sort of odd or stray, not providea 
 for anywhere m the general scheme of society. Foi 
 Ihis very reason, discerning it quickly, Leslie had beer 
 loyal to him ; and he, with all his boy-vehemence of ad 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 133 
 
 Ukiration and devotion, was loyal to her. She had the feel- 
 ing, motherly and sisterly in its mingled instinct, by which 
 all true and fine feminine natures are moved, in behalf 
 of the man-nature in its dawn, that so needs sympathy 
 and gentle consideration and provision, and that certain 
 respect which calls forth and fosters self-respect ; —^ to be 
 allowed and acknowledged to be somebody, lest for the 
 want of this it should fail, unhappily, ever to be anybody. 
 She was not aware of it ; she only followed her kindly 
 instinct. So she was doing, unconsciously, one of the best 
 early bits of her woman- work in the world. / 
 
 Once in a while it occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite to 
 wonder why it was that she was able to forget — that she 
 found she had forgotten, in a measure — those little self- 
 absorptions that she had been afraid of, and that had puz- 
 zled her in her thoughtful moments. She was glad to 
 be "taken up" with something that could please Dakie 
 Thayne, or to go over to the Cliff and see Prissy Hoskins, 
 and tell her a story, or help Dakie to fence in safely her 
 beds of flower-seedlings, (she had not let her first visit be 
 her last, in these weeks since her introduction there,) or 
 to sit an hour with dear old Miss Craydocke and help her 
 in a bit of charity work, and hear her sweet, simple, genial 
 talk. She had taken up her little opportunities as they 
 came, — was it by instinct only, or through a tender 
 Spirit-leadmg, that she winnowed them and chose the 
 best, and had been kept so a little out of the drift and 
 hurry that might else have frothed away the hours ? 
 " Give us our daily bread," " Lead us not into tempta- 
 tion," — they have to dc with each other, if we " know 
 ine daily bread when we see it" But that also is of the 
 grace of God. 
 
134 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 There was the beginning of fruit under the leaf "with 
 Leslie Goldthwaite ; and the fine life-current was setting 
 itself that way with its best impulse and its rarest par- 
 ti 3les. 
 
 The pincushion was well filled with the delicate, bris- 
 tling, tiny-headed needles, when Miss Craydocke appeared, 
 walking across, under her great brown sun-unibrella, from 
 tue hotel. 
 
 " If you 've nothing else to do, my dears, suppose we 
 go over to the pines together ? Where 's Miss Jeannie ? 
 Would n't she like it ? All the breeze there is haunts 
 them always." 
 
 " I 'm always ready for the pines," said Leslie. 
 " Here, Dakie, I hope you '11 catch a butterfly for 
 every pin. O, now I think of it, have you found your 
 elephant f " 
 
 " Yes, half-way up the garret-stairs. I can't feed him 
 comfortably. Miss Leslie. He wants to eat incessantly, 
 and the elm-leaves wilt so quickly, if I bring them in, 
 that the first thing I know, he 's out of proper provendei 
 and off on a raid. He needs to be on the tree ; but then 
 I should lose him." 
 
 Leslie thought a minute. " You might tie up a branch 
 with mosquito-netting," she said. 
 
 " Is n't that bright ? I '11 go right and do it, — only I 
 have n't any netting," said he. 
 
 " Mrs. Linceford has. I '11 go and beg a piece for you 
 And then — if you 'II just sit here a minute — I 'II come 
 Miss Craydocke." 
 
 When she came back, she brought Jeannie with hex 
 To use a vulgar proverb, Jeannie's nose was rather oul 
 
A SPMMEB IN LESLIE GOIDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 136 
 
 of joint since the Haughtleys had arrived. Ginevra 
 Thoresby was quite engrossed with them, and this often 
 involved Imogen. Tiiere was only room for six in Cap- 
 tain Green's wagon, and nothing had been said to Jeannio 
 about the drive to Minster Rock. 
 
 Leslie had hanging upon her finger, also, the finest and 
 whitest and most graceful of all possible little splint bas- 
 kets, only just big enough to carry a bit of such work as 
 was in it now, — a strip of sheer, delicate grass-linen, 
 which needle and thread, with her deft guidance, were 
 turning into a cobweb border, by a weaving of lace-lines, 
 strong, yet light, where the woof of the original material 
 had been drawn out. It was " done for odd-minute 
 work, and was better than anything she could buy." 
 Prettier it certainly was, when, with a finishing of the 
 merest edge of lace, it came to encircle her round, fair 
 arms and shoulders, or to peep out with its dainty revela- 
 tion among the gathering treasures of the linen-drawer I 
 told you of. She had accomplished yards of it already for 
 her holiday-work. 
 
 She had brought the netting, as she promised, for 
 Dakie Thayne, who received it with thanks, and straight- 
 way hastened off to get his " elephant " and a piece of 
 string, and to find a convenient elm-branch which he 
 Muld convert into a cage-pasture. 
 
 " I '11 come round to the pines afterward," he said. 
 
 And, just then, Sin Saxon's bright face and pretty fig- 
 ure showing themselves on the hotel piazza, with a seek- 
 ing look and gesture, Jeannie and Elinor wero Arava off 
 also to ask about the tableaux, and see if they were 
 wantedi with the like promise that " they would come 
 
136 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 presently." So Miss Craydocke and Leslie walked 
 BloTN'ly round, under tne sun-umorella, to the head of thq 
 ledge, by themselves. 
 
 Up this rocky promontory it was very pretty little 
 climbing, over the irregular turf-covered crags that made 
 the ascent ; and once up, it was charming. A natural 
 grove of stately old pine-trees, with their glory of tasselled 
 foliage and their breath of perfume, crowned and sheltered 
 it; and here had been placed at cosey angles, under the 
 deepest shade, long, broad, elastic benches of boards, 
 sprung from rock to rock, and made secure to stakes, 
 or held in place by convenient irregularities of the rock 
 itself. Pine-trunks and granite offered rough support to 
 backs that could so fit themselves ; and visitors found out 
 their favorite seats, and spent hours there, with books or 
 work, or looking forth in a luxurious listlessness from out 
 the cool upon the warm, bright valley-picture, and tlw 
 shining water wandering down from far heights and 
 unknown solitudes to see the world. 
 
 " It 's better so," said Miss Craydocke, when the oth- 
 ers left them. " I had a word I wanted to say to you. 
 What do you suppose those two came up here to the 
 mountains for ? " And Miss Craydocke nodded up, 
 indicatively, toward the two girl-figures just visil)le by 
 their draperies in a nook of rock beyond and above the 
 benches. 
 
 " To get the good of thom — as we did — I suppose," 
 Leslie answered, wondering a little what Miss Craydocke 
 might exactly mean. 
 
 " I suppose so, too," was the reply. " And I suppose 
 >— the Lord's love came with them ! I suppose He cares 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'8 LIFE. 131 
 
 «rhethi3r they get the full of the good. And yet I think 
 He leaves it, like everything else, a little to us." 
 
 Leslie's heart beat quicker, hearing these words. It 
 beat quicker always when such thoughts were touched. 
 She was shy of seeking them ; she almost tried, in an 
 involuntary way, to escape them at first, when they were 
 openly broached ; yet she longed always, at the same 
 time, for a deeper understanding of them. " I should 
 like to know the Miss Josselyns better," she said, pres- 
 ently, when Miss Craydocke made no haste to speak 
 again. " I have been thinking so this morning. I have 
 thought so very often. But they seem so quiet, always. 
 One does n't like to intrude." 
 
 " They ought to be more with young people," Miss 
 Craydocke went on. " And they ought to do less rip- 
 ping and sewing and darning, if it could be managed. 
 They brought three trunks with them. And what do 
 you think the third is full of?" 
 
 Leslie had no idea, of course. 
 
 " Old winter dresses. To be made over. For the 
 v^hildren at home. So that their mother may be coaxed 
 to take her turn and go away upon a visit when they get 
 back, seeing that the fall sewing will be half done 1 
 That 's a pretty coming to the mountains for two tired- 
 out young things, I think ! " 
 
 " O dear ! " cried Leslie, pitifully and then a secret 
 compunction seized her, thinking of her own little elegant, 
 odd-minute work, which was all she had to interfere with 
 mountain-pleasure. 
 
 "And is n't it some of our business, if we could get at 
 it?" asked Miss Craydocke, concluding. 
 
138 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " Dear Miss Craydocke ! " said Leslie, with a warm 
 brightness in her face, as she looked up, " the world is full 
 of business ; but so few people find out any but their 
 own ! Nobody but you dreamt of this, or of Prissy Hos- 
 kins, till you showed us, — or of all the little Wigleys 
 How do you come to know, when other people go on in 
 their own way, and see nothing, — like the priests and 
 Levites ? " This last she added by a sudden occurrence 
 and application, that half answered, beforehand, her own 
 question. 
 
 " When we think of people's needs as the Master's!" 
 said Miss Craydocke, evading herself, and never minding 
 her syntax. " When we think what every separate soul 
 is to him, that he came into the world to care for as 
 God cares for the sparrows ! It 's my faith that he 's 
 never gone away from his work, dear ; that his love lies 
 alongside every life, and in all its experience ; and that 
 his life is in his love ; and that if we want to find him — 
 there we may I ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the 
 least of these, ye have done it unto me.' " She grew 
 eloquent — the plain, simple-speaking woman — when 
 sometliing that was great and living to her would find 
 utterance. 
 
 " How do you mean that?" said Leslie, with a sort of 
 abruptness, as of one who must have definiteness, but 
 who hurried with her asking, lest after a minute she 
 might not dare. " That He really knows, and thinks, of 
 every special thing and person, — and cares? Or only 
 would?" 
 
 " I take it as He said it," said Miss Craydocke. " ' AK 
 power is given me in heaven and in earth.' ' And lo ! T 
 
A SUMMES IN LESLIE GOLD FHWAITE'S LIFE. 13» 
 
 am with you always, even unto the end of the world I ' 
 He put tlie two together himself, dear I " 
 
 A great, warm, instant glow seemed to rush over Leslie 
 mwardly. In the light and quickening of it, other words 
 shone out and declared themselves. " Abide in me, and 
 I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, ex- 
 cept it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye 
 abide in me." And this was the abiding I The sym- 
 pathy, the interest, that found itself side by side with 
 His ! The faith that felt His uniting presence with all ! 
 / To this child of sixteen rame a moment's glimpse of 
 what might be, truly, that lite which is " hid with Christ 
 in God," and which has its blessed work with the Lord 
 in the world ; — came, with the word of a plain, old, un- 
 considered woman, whom heedless girls made daily sport 
 of; — came, bringing with it "old and new," like a 
 householder of the kingdom of heaven ; showing how the 
 lite and the fruit are inextricably one, — how the growth 
 and the withering are inevitably determined ! / 
 
 They reached the benches now ; they saw the Jos- 
 selyns busy up beyond, 'with their chess-board between 
 them, and their mending-basket at their feet; they would 
 nor go now and interrupt their game. 
 
 The seat which the sisters had chosen, because it was 
 just a quiet little comer for two, was a nook scooped out, 
 as it were, in a jut of granite ; hollowed in behind and 
 perpendicularly to a height above their heads, and em- 
 bracing a mossy little flat below, so that it seemed like a 
 great solid arm-chair into which two could get together, 
 and a third could not possibly intrude. 
 
 Miss Craydocko and Leslie settled themselves, and both 
 
140 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFK 
 
 were silent. Presently Leslie spoke again, giving out s 
 fragmentary link of the train of thought that had been 
 going on in lier. " If it were n't for just one thing I ' 
 she said, and there she stopped. 
 
 " What ? " asked Miss Craydocke, as not a bit at a loss 
 to make out the unseen connection. 
 
 " The old puzzle. We have to think and work a 
 good deal of the time for ourselves. And then we lose 
 sight — " 
 
 "Of Him? Why?" 
 
 Leslie said no more, but waited. Miss Craydocke'a 
 tone was clear, untroubled. The young girl looked, 
 therefore, for this clear confidence to be spoken out. 
 / " Why ? since rfe is close to our life also, and cares 
 tenderly for that? — since, if we let him possess himself 
 of it, it is one of his own channels, by which he still 
 gives himself unto the world ? He did n't do it all in one 
 single history of three years, my child, or thirty-three, 
 out there in Judsea. He keeps on — so I believe — 
 through every possible way and circumstance of human 
 living now, if only the life is grafted on his. The Vine 
 and the branches, and God tending all. And the fruit is 
 the kingdom of heaven."/ 
 
 It is never too late, and never impossible, for a human 
 face to look beautiful. In the soft light and shadow of the 
 stirring pines, with the moving from within of that whicJi 
 at once illumined and veiled, with an exultation and an 
 awe, there came a glory over the homely and faded fea- 
 tures which they could neither bar nor dim. And the 
 thought took possession of the word and tone, and made 
 them simply grand and heavenly musical. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 141 
 
 After that they sat still again, — it matters not how 
 many minutes. The crisp green spines rustled dreamily 
 over their heads ; the wild birds called to each Other, far 
 back in the closer lying woods ; the water glanced on, 
 millions of new drops every instant making the selfsame 
 circles and gushes and falls, and the wealth of summer 
 sunshine holding and vivifying all. Leslie had word 
 and scene stamped together on her spirit and memory in 
 those moments. /There was a Presence in the hush and 
 beauty. Two souls were here met together in the name 
 of the living Christ. And for that there is the promise. ^ 
 
 Martha Josselyn and her sister sat and played and 
 mended on. 
 
 By and by Dakie Thayne came ; said a bright word 
 or two ; glanced round, in restless boy-fashion, as if tak- 
 ing in the elements of the situation, and considering what 
 was to be made out of it ; perceived the pair at chess ; 
 and presently, with his mountain stick, went springing 
 away from point to point, up and around the piles and 
 masses of rock and mound that made up the broadening 
 ascent of the ledge. 
 
 " Check to your queen," said Sue. 
 
 Martha put her elbow upon her knee, and held her 
 needle suspended by its thread. Sue darned away, and 
 got a great hole laid lengthwise with smooth lines, before 
 her threatening move had been provided for. Then a red 
 knight came with gallant leap, right down in the midst of 
 the white forces, menacing in his turn right and left ; and 
 Martha drew a long sigh, and sat back, and poised her 
 needle-lance again, and went to work ; and it was Sue's 
 turn to lean over the board with knit brows and holden 
 breath. 
 
142 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Something peered over the rock above them at this 
 moment. A boy's head, from which the cap had been 
 removed. 
 
 " If only they '11 play now, and not chatter ! " thought 
 Dakie Thayne, lying prone along the cliff above, and put- 
 ting up his elbows to rest his head between his hands. 
 " This '11 be jolly, if it don't turn to eavesdropping. 
 Poor old Noll ! I have n't had a game siace I played 
 with him ! " 
 
 Sue would not withdraw her attack. She planted a 
 bishop so that, if the knight should move, it would open 
 a course straight down toward a weak point beside the 
 red king. 
 
 " She means to ' fight it out on that line, if it takes 
 all summer,' " Dakie went on within himself, having 
 grasped, during the long pause before Sue's move, the 
 whole position. " They 're no fools at it, to have got it 
 into a shape like that ! I 'd just like Noll to see it ! " 
 
 Martha looked, and drew a thread or two into her 
 stocking, and looked again. Then she stabbed her cot- 
 ton-ball with her needle, and put up both hands — one 
 with the white stocking-foot still drawn over it — be- 
 side her temples. At last she castled. 
 
 Sue was as calm as the morning. She always grew 
 calm and strong as the game drew near the end. She 
 had even let her thoughts go off to other things while 
 Martha pondered and she wove in the cross-threads of 
 her darn. 
 
 " I wonder, Martha," she said now, suddenly, before 
 attending to the new aspect of the board, " if I could n't 
 do without that muslin skirt I made to wear under my 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 143 
 
 pina, and turn ic into a couple of white waists to carry 
 home to inothev ? If she goes away, you know — " 
 
 " Aigh ! " 
 
 It was a short, sharp, unspellable sound that came 
 from above. Sue started, and a red piece rolled from 
 the board. Then there was a rustling and a crashing 
 and a leaping, and by a much shorter and more hazard- 
 ous way than he had climbed, Dakie Thayne came down 
 and stood before them. " I had to let you know ! I 
 couldn't listen. I was in hopes you would n't talk. Don't 
 move, please ! I '11 find the man. I do beg your par- 
 don, — I had no business, — but I so like chess, — when 
 it 's any sort of a game ! " 
 
 While he spoke, he was looking about the base of the 
 rock, and by good fortune spied and pounced upon the 
 bit of bright-colored ivory, which had rolled and rested 
 itself against a hummock of sod. 
 
 " May I see it out ? " he begged, approaching, and 
 putting the piece upon the board. " You must have 
 played a good deal," looking at Sue. 
 
 " We play often at home, my sister and I ; and I had 
 some good practice in — " There she stopped. 
 
 " In the hospital," said Martha, with the sharp little 
 way she took up sometimes. " Why should n't you tell 
 of it ? " 
 
 " Has Miss Josselyn been in the hospitals ? " asked 
 Dakie Thayne, with a certain quick change in his tone. 
 
 " For the best of two years," Martha answered. 
 
 At this moment, seeing how Dakie was breaking the 
 ice for them, up came Miss Craydocke and Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite. 
 
144 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " Miss Leslie ! Miss Craydocke ! This lady has been 
 away among our soldiers — in the hospitals — half 
 through the war! Perhaps — did you ever — " But 
 with that he broke off. There was a great flush on his 
 face, and his eyes glowed with boy-enthusiasm lit at the 
 thought of the war, and of brave men, and of noble, 
 ministering women, of whom he suddenly found himself 
 face to face with one. 
 
 The game of chess got swept together. " It was as 
 good as over," Martha Josselyn said. And these five 
 sat down together among the rocks, and in half an hour, 
 after weeks of mere "good-mornings" they had grown 
 to be old friends. But Dakie Thayne — he best knew 
 why — left his fragment of a question unfinished. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 145 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE " by-and-by " people came at last : Jeannie, and 
 Elinor, and Sin Saxon, and the Arnalls, and Josie 
 Scherman. They wanted Leslie, — to tell and ask her 
 half a hundred things about the projected tableaux. If 
 it had only been Miss Craydocke and the Josselyus sit- 
 ting together, with Dakie Thayne, how would that have 
 concerned them, — the later comers? It woxdd only 
 have been a bit of " the pines " preoccupied : they would 
 have found a place for themselves, and gone on with 
 their own chatter. But Leslie's presence made all the 
 difference. The little group became the nucleus of the 
 enlarging circle. Miss Craydocke had known very well 
 how this would be. 
 
 They asked this and that of Leslie which they had 
 come to ask ; and she would keep turning to the Jos- 
 selyns and appealing to them ; so they were drawn in. 
 There was a curtain to be made, first of all. Miss Cray- 
 docke would undertake that, drafting Leslie and the 
 Miss Josselyns to help her ; they should all come to her 
 room early to-morrow, and they would have it ready by 
 ten o'clock. Leslie wondered a little that she found work 
 for them to do : a part of the play she thought would 
 have been better ; but Miss Craydocke knew how that 
 must come about. Besides, she had more than one lit- 
 tle line to lay and to pull, this serpent-wise old maiden, 
 in behalf of her ultimate designs concerning them. 
 
 I can't stay here under the pines and tell you aU their 
 7 J 
 
146 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 talk this summer morning, — how Sin Saxon grew social 
 and saucy with the quiet Miss Josselj'ns ; how she fell 
 upon the mending- busket and their notability, and de- 
 clared that the most foolish and pernicious proverb in the 
 world was tiiat old thing about a stitch in time saving 
 nine ; it might save certain special stitches ; but how 
 about the tijne itself, and other stitches ? She did n't 
 believe in it, — running round after a darning-needle imd 
 forty other things, the minute a thread broke, and drop- 
 ping vrhatever else one had in hand, to let it ravel itself 
 all out again ; " she believed in a good big basket, in a 
 dark closet, and laying up there for a rainy day, and be- 
 ing at peace in the pleasant VFeather. Then, too, there 
 was anotlier thing ; she did n't believe in notability itself, 
 at all : the more one was fool enough to know, the more 
 one had to do, all one's life long. Providence always 
 took care of the lame and the lazy ; and, besides, those 
 capable people never hud contented minds. They 
 could n't keep servants : their own fingers were always 
 itching to do things better. Her sister Effie was a lam- 
 entable instance. She 'd married a man, — well, not 
 very rich, — and she had set out to learn and direct every- 
 thing. The consequence was, she was like Eve after the 
 apple, — she knew good and evil ; and was n't the gar- 
 den just a wilderness after that ? She never thought of 
 it before, but she believed that was exactly what that 
 old poem in Genesis was written for! " 
 
 How Miss Craydocke answered, with her gentle, toler- 
 ant common-sense, and right thought, and wide-awake 
 brightness ; how the Josselyns grew cordial and confi- 
 dent enough to confess that, with five little children in the 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 147 
 
 house, there was n't a great necessity for laying up 
 against a rainy day, and with stockings at a dollar and 
 a half a pair, one was apt to get the nine stitches, or a 
 pretty comfortable multiple of them, every Wednesday 
 when the wash came in ; and how these different kinds 
 of lives, coming together with a friendly friction, found 
 themselves not so uncongenial, or so incomprehensible to 
 each other, after all ; — all this, in its detail of bright 
 words, I cannot stop to tell you ; it would take a good 
 many summers to go through one like this so fully ; but 
 when the big bell rang for dinner, they all came down 
 the ledge together, and Sue and Martha Josselyn, for the 
 first time in four weeks, felt themselves fairly one with 
 the current interest and life of the gay house in which 
 they had been dwellers and yet only lookers-on. 
 
 Mrs. Thoresby, coming down to dinner, a few min- 
 utes late, with her daughters, and pausing — as people 
 always didat the Green Cottage, without knowing why — 
 to step from the foot of the stairway to the open piazza- 
 door, and glance out before turning toward the dining- 
 room, saw the ledge party just dividing itself into its 
 two little streams, that were to head, respectively, for 
 cottage and hotel. 
 
 " It is a wonder to me that Mrs. Linceford allows it ! " 
 was her comment. " Just the odds and ends of all the 
 company here. And those girls, who might take what- 
 ever stand they pleased." 
 
 " Miss Leslie always finds out the nicest people, and 
 the best times, / think," said Etty, who had dragged 
 through but a dull morning behind the blinds of her 
 mother's window, puzzling over crochet, — which she 
 
148 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 hated, because she said it was like everlastingly poking 
 one's finger after a sliver, — and had caught, now and 
 then, over the still air, the laughter and bird-notes that 
 came together from among the piues. One of the Miss 
 Haughtleys had sat with them ; but that only " stiffened 
 out the dulness," as Etty had declared, the instant the 
 young lady left them. 
 
 " Don't be pert, Etty. You don't know what you 
 want, or what is for your interest. The Haddens were 
 well enough, by themselves; but when it comes to Tom, 
 Dick, and Harry ! " 
 
 " I don't believe that 's elegant, mamma," said Etty, 
 demurely ; " and there is n't Tom, Dick, nor Harry ; 
 only Dakie Thayne, and that nice, nice Miss Craydocke ! 
 And — I hate the Haughtleys ! " This with a sudden 
 explosiveness at the last, after the demureness. 
 
 " Etty ! " and Mrs. Thoresby intoned an indescribable 
 astonishment of displeasure in her utterance of her 
 daughter's name. " Remember yourself. You are neither 
 to be impertinent to me, nor to speak rudely of persons 
 whom I choose for 3'our acquaintance. When you are 
 older, you will come to understand how these chance 
 meetings may lead to the most valuable friendships, or, 
 on the contrary, to the most mortifying embarrassments. 
 In the mean time, you are to be guided." After which 
 little sententious homily out of the Book of the World, 
 Mrs. Thoresby ruffled herself with dignity, and led her 
 brood away with her. 
 
 Next day, Tom, Dick, and Harry — that is Jto_J>yt 
 Miss Craydocke, Susan and Martha Josselyn, and Leslie 
 Goldthwaite — were gathered in the first-named lady's 
 
A SIMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 149 
 
 room, to make the great green curtain. And there Sin 
 Saxon came in upon them, — ostensibly to bring the 
 curtain-rings, and explain how she wanted them put on ; 
 but after that she lingered. 
 
 " It 's like the Tower of Babel up stairs," she said, 
 "and just about as likely ever to get built. I can't 
 bear to stay where I can't hear myself talk. You 're 
 nice and cosey here. Miss CraydDcke." And, with that, 
 she settled herself down on the floor, with all her little 
 ruffles and flounces and billows of muslin heaping and 
 curling themselves about her, till her pretty head and 
 shoulders were like a new and charming 'sort of floating- 
 island in the midst. 
 
 And it came to pass that presently the talk diifted 
 round to vanities and vexations, — on this wise. 
 
 " Everybody wants to be everything," said Sin Saxon. 
 " They don't say so, of course. But they keep objecting, 
 and iinsettling. Nothing hushes anybody up but propos- 
 ing them for some especially magnificent part. And you 
 can't hush them all at once in that way. If they 'd only 
 say what they want, and be done with it ! But they 're 
 so dreadfully polite ! Only finding out continual reasons 
 •why nobody will do for this and that, or have time to 
 dress, or something, and waiting modestly to be sug- 
 gested and shut up ! When I came down they were in 
 full tilt about the Lady of Shalott. It 's to be one of the 
 crack scenes, you know, — river of blue cambric, and a 
 real, regular, lovely property-boat. Frank Scherman 
 sent for it, and it came up on the stage yesterday, — driv- 
 ers swearing all the way. Now they '11 go on for half 
 an hour, at least ; and at the end of that time I shall 
 
160 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 walk in — upon the plain of Shinar — with my hair all 
 let down, — it 's real, every bit of it, not a tail tied on 
 anywhere, — and tell them, I — myself — am to be the 
 Lady of Slialott ! I think I shall relish flinging in that 
 little bit of honesty, — like a dash of cold water into the 
 middle of a fry. Won't it sizzle ? " 
 
 She sat twirling the cord upon which the dozens of 
 great brass rings were strung, watching the shining 
 ellipse they made as they revolved, — like a child set 
 down upon the carpet with a plaything, — expecting no 
 answer, only waiting for the next vagrant whimsicality 
 that should come across her brain, — not altogether 
 without method, either, — to give it utterance. 
 
 " I don't suppose I could convince you of it," she re- 
 sumed ; " but I do actually have serious thoughts some- 
 times. I think that very likely some of us — most of 
 us — are going to the dogs. And I wonder what it will 
 be when we get there. Why don't you contradict — or 
 confirm — what I say, Miss Craydocke ? " 
 
 " You have n't said out, yet, have you ? " 
 
 Sin Saxon opened wide her great, wondering, saucy 
 blue eyes, and turned them full upon Miss Craydocke's 
 face. " Well, you are a oner ! as somebody in Dickens 
 says. There 's no such thing as a leading question for 
 you. It 's like the rope the dog slipped his head out of, 
 and left the man holding fast at the other end, in touch- 
 ing confidence that he was coming on. I saw that once 
 on Broadway. Now I experience it. I suppose I 've 
 got to say more. Well, then, in a general way, do you 
 think living amounts to anything, Miss Craydocke?" 
 
 " Whose living ? " 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE's LIFE. 151 
 
 " Sharp — as a knife that 's just cut through a lemon I 
 Ours, then, if you please ; us girls', for instance." 
 
 " You have n't done much of your living yet, my dear." 
 The tone was gentle, as of one who looked down from 
 such a height of years that she felt tenderly the climb- 
 ing that had been, for those who had it yet to do. 
 
 " We 're as busy at it, too, as we can be. But some- 
 times I 'tc mistrusted something like what I discovered 
 very indignantly one day when I was four years old, tind 
 fancied I was making a petticoat, sewing through and 
 through a bit of flannel. The thread had n't any knot 
 in it ! " 
 
 " That was very well, too, until you knew just where 
 to put the stitches that should stay." 
 <^" Which brings us to our subject of the morning, as 
 the sermons say sometimes, when they 're half through, 
 or ought to be.J There are all kinds of stitches, — em- 
 broidery, and plain over-and-over, and whippings, and 
 darns ! When are we to make our knot and begin ? 
 and which kind are we to do ? " 
 
 " Most lives find occasion, more or less, for each. 
 Practised fingers will know how to manage all." 
 
 " But — it 's — the — proportion ! " cried Sin, in a 
 crescendo that ended with an empliasis that was nearly 
 a little scream. 
 
 " I think that, when one looks to what is really needed 
 most and first, will arrange itself," said Miss Craydocke. 
 " Something gets crowded out, with us all. It depends 
 upon what, and how, and with what willingness we let 
 it go." 
 
 " If^ow we come to the superlative sort of people, — the 
 
162 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE's LIFE. 
 
 extra good ones, who let everything go that is n't solid 
 duty ; all the ornament of life, — - good looks, — tidiness 
 even, — and everything that 's the least bit jolly, and that 
 don't keep your high-mindedness on the strain. I want 
 to be low-minded — weak-mmded, at least, — now and 
 then. /I can't bear ferociously elevated people, who won't 
 say a word that don't count ; people that talk about their 
 time being interrupted, (as if their time was n't every- 
 body else's time, too,) because somebody comes in once 
 in a while for a friendly call ; and who go about the streets 
 as if they were so intent upon some tremendous good 
 work, or big thinking, that it would be dangerous even 
 to bow to a common sinner, for fear of being waylaid and 
 hindered. I know people like that ; and all I 've to say 
 is, that, if they 're to make up the heavenly circles, I 'd 
 full as lief go down lower, where they 're kind of social ! 'y 
 There can scarcely be a subject touched, in ever so light 
 a way, — especially a moral or a spiritual subject, — in 
 however small a company of persons, that shall not set 
 in motion varied and intense currents of thought, — bear 
 diverse and searching application to consciousness and ex- 
 perience. The Josselyns sat silent with tlie long breadths 
 of green cambric over their laps, listening with an amuse- 
 ment that freshened into their habitual work-day mood, 
 like a wilful little summer breeze born out of blue morning 
 skies, unconscious of clouds, to the oddities of Sin Saxon ; 
 but the drift of her sayings, the meaning she actually had 
 under them, bore down upon their different knowledge 
 with a significance whose sharpness she had no dream of. 
 " Plain over-and-over," — how well it illustrated what 
 their young days and the disposal of them had been. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 153 
 
 Miss Craydocke thought of the darns ; her story cannot 
 be told here ; but she knew what it meant to have the 
 darns of life fall to one's share, — to have the filling up 
 to do, with dextrousness and pains and sacrifice, of holes 
 that other people make ! 
 
 For Leslie Goldthwaite she got the next word of the 
 lesson she was learning, — "/(S depends on what one is 
 willing to let get crowded out." 
 
 Sin Saxon went on again. 
 /"'I 've had a special disgust given me to superiority. I 
 would n't be superior for all the world. We had a supe- 
 rior specimen come among us at Highslope last year. 
 She 's there yet, it s commonly believed ; but nobody 
 takes the trouble to be positive of it. Reason why, she 
 took np immediately such a position of mental and moral 
 altitude above our heads, and became so sublimely uncon- 
 scious of all beneath, that all beneath was n't going to 
 strain its neck to look after her, much less provide itself 
 with telescopes. We 're pretty nice people, we think, 
 but we 're not particularly curious in astsonomy. We 
 heard great things of her, beforehand ; and we were 
 all ready to make much of her. We asked her to our 
 parties. She came, with a look upon her as if some un- 
 pleasant duty had forced her temporarily into purgatory. 
 She shied round like a cat in a strange garret, as if all 
 she wanted was to get out. She would n't dance ; she 
 would n't talk ; she went home early, — to her studies, I 
 suppose, and her plans for next day's unmitigated useful- 
 ness. She took it for granted we had nothing in us hut 
 dance, and so — as Artemus Waid says — ' If the Ameri- 
 can Eagle could solace itself in that way, we let it went ! ' 
 7* 
 
154 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE's LIFE. 
 
 She might have done some good to us, — we needed to 
 be done to, I don't doubt, — but it 's all over now. That 
 light is under a bushel, and that city 's bid, bo far as 
 Highslope is concerned. And we 've pretty much made 
 up our minds, among us, to be bad and jolly. Only 
 sometimes I get thinking, — that 's all.'./^ 
 
 She got up, giving the string of rings a final whirl, and 
 tossing them into Leslie Goldth waite's lap. " Good by," 
 she said, shaking down her flounces. " It 's time for me 
 to go and assert myself at Shinar. ' Moi, c^ent V Umpire ! ' 
 Napoleon was great when he said that. A great deal 
 greater than if he 'd pretended to be meek, and want 
 nothing but the public good ! " 
 
 / " What gets crowded out ? " Day by day that is the 
 great test of our life. y 
 
 Just now, everything seemed likely to get crowded out 
 with the young folks at Outledge, but dresses, characters, 
 and rehearsals. The swivel the earth turned on at this 
 moment was the coming Tuesday evening and its per- 
 formance. And the central axis of that, to nearly every 
 individual interest, was what such particular individual 
 was to " be." 
 
 They had asked Leslie to take the part of Zorayda in 
 the Three Moorish Princesses of the Alhambra. Jeannie 
 and Elinor were to be Zayda and Zorahayda. As for 
 Leslie, she liked well enough, as we know, to look pretty ; 
 it was, or had been, till other thoughts of late had begun 
 to " crowd it out," something like a besetting weakness ; 
 she had only lately, to tell the whole truth as it seldom is 
 told, begun to be ashamed, before her higher self, to turn, 
 the first thing in the morning, with a certain half-mechan- 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 155 
 
 ical anxiety, toward her glass, to see how she was looking. 
 Without studying into separate causes of complexion and 
 so forth, as older women given to these things come to do, 
 she knew that somehow there was often a difference ; and 
 beside the standing question in her mind as to wliether 
 there were a chance of her growing up to anything like 
 positive beauty or not, there was apt often to be a reason 
 why she would like to-day, if possible, to be in particular 
 good looks. When she got an invitation, or an excursion 
 was planned, the first thing that came into her head was 
 naturally what she should wear ; and a good deal of the 
 pleasure would depend on that. A party without an espe- 
 cially pretty dress did n't amount to much ; she could n't 
 help that ; it did count with everybody, and it made a dif- 
 ference. She would like, undoubtedly, a "pretty part" 
 in these tableaux ; but there was more in Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite, even without touching upon the deep things, than 
 all this. Only a pretty part did not quite satisfy : she had 
 capacity for something more. In spite of the lovely Moor- 
 ish costume to be contrived out of blue silk and white mus- 
 lin, and to contrast so picturesquely with Jeannie's crim- 
 son, and the-soft, snowy drapery of Elinor, she would have 
 been half willing to be the " discreet Kadiga " instead ; 
 for the old woman had really to look something as well 
 as somehow, and there was a spirit and a fun in that. 
 
 The pros and cons and possibilities were working them- 
 selves gradually clear to her thoughts, as she sat and 
 listened, with external attention in the beginning, to Sin 
 Saxon's chatter. Ideas about the adaptation of her dress- 
 material, and the character she could bring out of, or get 
 into, her part, mingled themselves together •, and Irving's 
 
156 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE, 
 
 delicious old legend that she had read hundreds of times, 
 entranced, as a child, repeated itself in snatches to her 
 recollection. Jeannie must be stately ; that would quite 
 suit her. Elinor — must just be Elinor. Then the airs 
 and graces remained for herself. She thought she could 
 illustrate with some spirit the latent coquetry of the im- 
 prisoned beauty ; she believed, notwithstanding the fash- 
 ion in which the story measured out their speech in ra- 
 tions, — always an appropriate bit, and j ust so much of it 
 to each, — that the gay Zorayda must have had the prin- 
 cipal hand in their affairs, — must have put the others up 
 to mischief, and coaxed most winningly the discreet Ka- 
 diga. She could make something out of it : it should n't 
 be mere flat prettiness. She began to congratulate her- 
 self upon the character. And then her ingenious fancy 
 flew off to something else that had occurred to her, and 
 that she had only secretly proposed to Sin Saxon, — an 
 illustration of a certain ancient nursery ballad, to vary 
 by contrast the pathetic representations of Auld Robin 
 Gray and the Lady of Shalott. It was a bright plan, and 
 she was nearly sure she could carry it out ; but it was not 
 a "pretty part," and Sin Saxon had thought it fair she 
 should have one ; therefore Zorayda. All this was reason 
 why Leslie's brain was busy, like her fingers, as she sat 
 and sewed on the green curtain, and let Sin Saxon talk. 
 Till Miss Craydocke said that, " Something always gets 
 crowded out," and so those words came to her in the 
 midst of all. 
 
 The Josselyns went away to their own room when the 
 last rings had been sewn on ; and the curtain was ready, 
 as had been promised, at ten o'clock. Leslie stayed, 
 waiting for Dakie Thayne to come and fetch it. While 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 157 
 
 •he sat there, silent, by the window, Miss CrayJocke 
 Drought out a new armful of something from a drawer, 
 and came and placed her Shaker rocking-chair beside her. 
 Leslie looked round, and saw her lap full of two little 
 blight plaid dresses. 
 
 " It 's only the button-holes," said Miss Craydocke, 
 " I 'm going to make them now, before they find me 
 out." 
 
 •Leslie looked very uncomprehending. 
 
 " You did n't suppose I let those girls come in here and 
 spend their morning on that nonsense for nothing, did 
 you ? This is some of their work, — the work that 's 
 crowding all the frolic out of their lives. I 've found out 
 where they keep it, and I 've stolen some. I 'm Scotch, 
 you know, and I believe in brownies. They 're good to 
 believe in. Old fables are generally all hut true. You've 
 only to 'put in one to make it so,' as children say in 'odd 
 and even.' " And Miss Craydocke overcasted her first 
 button-hole energetically. 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite saw through the whole now, in a 
 minute. " You did it on purpose, for an excuse ! " she 
 said ; and there was a ring of applauding delight in her 
 voice which a note of admiration poorly marks. 
 
 " Well, you must begin somehow," said Miss Cray- 
 docke. " And after you 've once begun, you can keep 
 on." Which, as a generality, was not sc glittering, per- 
 haps, as might be ; but Leslie could imagine, with a 
 warm heart-throb, what, in this case. Miss Craydocke's 
 " keeping on " would be. 
 
 " I foun 1 them out by degrees," said Miss Craydocke. 
 " They 've been ove rhead here, this n\onin nearly, and 
 
158 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWATTE'S LIFE. 
 
 if you dorCt listen nor look more than is ladylike, yoe 
 can't help scraps enough to piece something out of by that 
 time. They sit by their window, and I sit by mine. I 
 cough, and sneeze, and sing, as much as I find comfort" 
 able, and they can't help knowing where their neighbora 
 are ; and after that, it 's their look-out, of course. I lent 
 them some books one Sunday, and so we got on a sort of 
 visiting terms, and lately I 've gone in, sometimes, and 
 Bat down awhile when I 've had an errand, and they 've 
 been here ; and the amount of it is, they 're two young 
 things that '11 grow old before they know they 've ever 
 been young, if somebody don't take hold. They 've 
 only got just so much time to stay; and if we don't con- 
 trive a holiday for them before it 's over, why, — there 'b 
 the ' Inasmuch,' — that 's all." 
 
 Dakie Thayne came to the door to fetch Leslie and 
 the curtain. 
 
 " It 's all ready, Dakie, — here ; but I can't go just 
 now, or not unless they want me very much, and then 
 you '11 come, please, won't you, and let me know 
 again ? " said Leslie, bundling up the mass of cambric, 
 and piling it upon Dakie's arms. 
 
 Dakie looked disappointed, but promised, and departed. 
 They were finding him useful up stairs, and Leslie had 
 begged him to help. 
 
 " Now give me that other dress," she said, turning to 
 Miss Craydocke. " And you, — could n't ' ax go and 
 iteal something else ? " She spoke impetuously, and hei 
 eyes shone with eagerness, and more. 
 
 "I 've had to lay a plan," resumed Miss Craydocke, ai 
 Leslie *ook the measure of a button-hole and began 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAHE'S IJFE. 159 
 
 " Change of work is as good as a rest. So I "ve had 
 them down here on the curtain among the girls. Next, 
 I 'm going to have a bee. I 've got some things to finish 
 up for Prissy Hoskins, and they 're likely to be wanted in 
 something of a hurry. She 's got another aunt in Ports- 
 mouth, and if she can only be provided with proper 
 things to wear, she can go down there, Aunt Hoskins 
 says, and stay all winter, get some schooling, and see a 
 city doctor. The man here tells them that something 
 might be done for her hearing by a person skilled in such 
 things, and Mrs. Hoskins says, ' There 's a little money 
 of the child's own, from the vandoo when her father 
 died,' that would pay for travelling and advice, and ' ef 
 the right sort ain't to be had in Portsmouth, when she 
 once gets started, she shall go whuzzever 't is, if she has 
 to have a vandoo herself I ' It 's a whole human life of 
 comfort and usefulness, Leslie Goldthwaite, may be, that 
 depends ! — Well, I 'II have a bee, and get Prissy fixed 
 out. Her Portsmouth aunt is coming up, and will take 
 her back. She '11 give her a welcome, but she 's poor 
 herself, and can't aflFord much more. And then the 
 Josselyns are to have a bee. Not everybody; but yoa 
 and me, and we '11 see by that time who else. It 's to 
 begin as if we meant to have them all round, for the 
 frolic and the sociability ; and besides that, we '11 steal aU 
 we can. For your part, you must get intimate. No- 
 body can do anything, except as a friend. And the last 
 week they 're here is the very week I 'm going every- 
 where in ! I 'm going to charter the little red, and have 
 parties of my own. We '11 have a picnic at the Cliff, 
 and Prissy will wait on us with ra?pberries and cream. 
 
160 A SUMMEE IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 We 'II walk up Feather-Cap, and ride up Giant's Cairn, 
 and we '11 have a sunset at Minster Rock. And it 's go- 
 ing to be pleasant weather every day! " 
 
 They stitched away, then, dropping their talk. Misa 
 -Crayiocke was out of breath ; and Leslie measured her 
 even loops with eyes that glittered more and more. 
 
 The half-dozen button-holes apiece were completed; 
 and then Miss Craydocke trotted off with the two little 
 frocks upon her arm. She came back, bringing some 
 two or three pairs of cotton-flannel drawers. 
 
 " I took them up, just as they lay, cut out and ready, 
 on the bed. I would n't have a word. I told them I 'd 
 nothing to do, and so I have n't. My hurry is coming 
 on all of a sudden when I have my bee. Now I 've 
 done it once, I can do it again. They '11 find out it 's 
 my way, and when you 've once set up a way, people 
 always turn out for it." 
 
 Miss Craydocke was in high glee. 
 
 Leslie stitched up three little legs before Dakie came 
 ngain, and said they must have her up stairs. 
 
 One thing occurred to her, as they ran along the wind- 
 'ng passages, up and down, and up again, to the new hall 
 in the far-off L. 
 
 The Moorish dress would take so long to arrange. 
 Would n't Imogen Thoresby like the part ? She was 
 only in the Three Fishers Imogen and Jeannie met hei' 
 as she came in. 
 
 " It is just you I wanted to find," cried Leslie, sealing 
 her warm impulse with immediate act. "Will you he 
 Zorayda, Imogen, — with Jeannie and Elinor, yoo 
 know? ] ' e got so much to do without. Sin Saxon 
 
A SUMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHW.UTE'S UFE. 161 
 
 anderstands ; it 's a bit of a secret as yet. I shall be so 
 obliged I " 
 
 Imogen's blue eyes sparkled and widened. It was jusl 
 what she had been secretly longing for. But why in the 
 irorld should Leslie Goldthwaite want to give it up ? 
 
 It had got crowded out, that was all. 
 
 Another thing kept coming into Leslie's head that day ; 
 — the yards of delicate grass-linen that she had hem 
 stitched, and knotted into bands that summer, — just for 
 idle-work, when plain bindings and simple ruffling would 
 have done as well, — and all for her accumulating treas- 
 ure of reserved robings, while here were these two girla 
 darning stockings, and sewing over heavy woollen stu£&, 
 that actual, inevitable work might be despatched in these 
 bright, warm hours that had been meant for holiday. It 
 troubled her to think of it, seeing that the time was gone, 
 and nothing now but these threads and holes remained of 
 it to her share. 
 
 Martha Josselyn had asked her yesterday about the 
 Btitch, — some little baby-daintiness she had thought of 
 for the mother who could n't aflFord embroideries and 
 thread-laces for her youngest and least of so many. Les- 
 lie would go and show her, and, as Miss Craydocke said, 
 get intimate. It was true there were certain little things 
 one could not do, except as a friend. 
 
 JVIeanwhile, Martha Josselyn must be the Sister of 
 Charity in that lovely tableau «f Consolation. 
 
 It does not take long for two young girls to grow in- 
 timate over tableau plans and fancy stitches. Two days 
 jft«r this, Leslie Goldthwaite was as cosily established in 
 'iie .Tosselyns' room as if she had been there every daj 
 
162 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 all summer. ' Some people are like drops of quicksilver, ai 
 Martha Josselyn had declared, only one can't tell how 
 that is till one gets out of the bottle. \ 
 
 " Thank you," she said to Leslie, as she mastered the 
 little intricacy of the work rpon the experimental scrap 
 of cambric she had drawn. " I understand it now, I 
 think, and I shall find time, somehow, after I get home, 
 for what I want to do." With that, she laid it in a cor- 
 ner of her basket, and took up cotton-flannel again. 
 
 Leslie put something, twisted lightly in soft paper, be- 
 side it. " I want you to keep that, please, for a pattern, 
 and to remember me," she said. " I 've made yards 
 more than I really want. It 's nothing," she added, 
 hastily interrupting the surprised and remonstrating 
 thanks of the other. " And now we must see about 
 that scapulary thing, or whatever it is, for your nun's 
 dress." 
 
 And there was no more about it, only an unusual feel- 
 ing in Martha Josselyn's heart, that came up warm long 
 after, and by and by a little difference among Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite's pretty garnishings, where something had got 
 crowded out. 
 
 This is the way, from small to great, things sort them- 
 selves. 
 
 /" " No man can serve two masters," is as full and true 
 tnd strong upon the side of encouragement as of rebnke,_ i 
 
A SUMJIEE IN LESLIE GOLDTHWATTE'S LIFE. 163 
 
 X. 
 
 THE tableaux had to be put off. Frank Scherman 
 was obliged to go down to Boston, unexpectedly, to 
 attend to business, and nothing could be done without 
 him. The young girls felt all the reaction that comes 
 with the sudden interruption of eager plans. A stagna- 
 tion seemed to succeed to their excitement and energy 
 They were thrown back into a vacuum. 
 
 " There is nothing on earth to do, or to think about," 
 said Florrie Amall, dolefully. 
 
 " Just as much as there was last week," replied Josit 
 Scherman, common-sense-ically. Frank was only her 
 brother, and that made a difference. " There 's Giant's 
 Cairn as big as ever, and Feather-Cap, and Minster Rock, 
 and the Spires. And there 's plenty to do. Tableaux 
 are n't everything. There 's your ' howl,' Sin Saxon. 
 That has n't come off yet." 
 
 " ' It is n't the fall that hurts, — it 's the fetch-up,' aa 
 tlie Irishman observed," said Sin Saxon, with a yawn. 
 " It was n't that I doted particularly on the tableaux, 
 but ' the waters wild went o'er my child, and I was left 
 lamenting.' It was what I happened to be after at the 
 moment, ''when I gut ready for a go, I do hate to take 
 off my bonnet and sit down at home.'^ 
 
 " But the ' howl,' Sin ! "What 's tc become of that ? " 
 
 " Ain't I howling all I can ? " 
 
 And this was all Sin Saxon would say about it. The 
 girls meant to keep her in mind, and to have their frolic, 
 
164 A <3U5IMER jH LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 — the lialf of them in the most ima^native ignorance aa 
 to what it might prove to be ; but somehow their leadef 
 iierself seemed to have lost her enthusiasm or her inten> 
 tiim. 
 
 Leslie Goldthwaite felt neither disappointment nor im 
 patience. She had got a permanent interest. It is good 
 always to have something to fall back upon. The tab- 
 leaux would come by and by; meanwhile, there was 
 plenty of time for their " bees," and for the Cliff. 
 
 They had long mornings in the pines, and cool, quiet 
 afternoons in Miss Craydocke's pretty room. It was 
 wonderful the cleverness the Josselyns had come to with 
 little frocks. One a skirt, and the other a body, — they 
 made nothing of finishing the whole at a sitting. " It '« 
 only seeing the end from the beginning," Martha said, 
 when Leslie uttered her astonishment. " We know the 
 way, right through ; / and no way seems long when 
 you 've travelled it often.'/ To be sure, Prissy Hoskins's 
 delaines and calicoes did n't need to be contrived after 
 Demorest's fashion-plates. 
 
 Then, tliey had their holiday, taking the things over to 
 the Cliff, and trying them all on Prissy, very much as if 
 tbey had been a party of children, and she a paper doll. 
 Her rosy little face and wilful curls came out of each 
 prettier than the last, precisely as a paper dolly's does, 
 and when at the end of all they got her into a bright 
 violet print and a white bib-apron, it was well they were 
 the last, for they could n't have had the heart to take 
 her out of them. Leslie had made for hei a small hoop, 
 from the upper half of one of her OM'n, and laced a little 
 cover upon it, of striped seersucker, of which ther« was a 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 16& 
 
 petticoat also to wear above. These, clear, clean, and 
 stiffened, came from Miss Craydocke's stores. She 
 never travelled without her charity-trunk, wherein — 
 put at once in perfect readiness for different use the mo- 
 meTit they passed beyond her own — she kept all spare 
 material that waited for such call. Breadths of old 
 dresses, ripped and sponged and pressed, or starched, 
 ironed, and folded ; flannel petticoats shrunken short ; 
 stockings " cut down " in the old, thrifty, grandmother 
 fashion ; underclothing strongly patched (as she said, the 
 " Lord's mark put upon it, since it had pleased him to 
 give her the means to do without patches ") ; odds and 
 ends of bonnet-ribbons, dipped in spirits and rolled tightly 
 upon blocks, from which they unrolled nearly as good as 
 new ; — all these things, and more, religiously made the 
 most of for whomsoever they might first benefit, went 
 about with her in this, the biggest of her boxes, which, 
 give out from it as she might, she never seemed, she said, 
 to get quite to the bottom of. 
 
 Under the rounded skirts, below the short, plain trous- 
 ers, Prissy's ankles and feet were made shapely with 
 white stockings and new, stout boots. (Aunt Hoskins 
 believed in " white stockin's, or go athout. BilLn' an' 
 bleachin' an' comin' out new ; none o' yer aggravations 'v 
 everlastin' dirt-color.") And one thing more, the pret- 
 tiest of all. A great net of golden-brown silk that Leslie 
 had begged Mrs. Linceford, who liked netting, to make, 
 gathered into strong, large meshes the unruly wealth of 
 hair brushed back in rippling lines from Prissy's temples, 
 and showing so its brighter, natural color from under- 
 ueath, where the outside had grown sun-faded. 
 
166 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLUTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 "I 'm just like Cinderella, — with four godmothers!" 
 cried the child ; and she danced up and down, as Leslie 
 let her go from under her hands. 
 
 " You 're just like — a little heathen ! " screamed Aunt 
 Hoskins. " Where 's yer thanks ? " Her own thanks 
 spoke themselves, partly in an hysterical sort of chuckle 
 and sniffle, that stopped each other short, and the rebuke 
 with them. " But there ! she don't know no better I 
 'T ain't fer every day, you need n't think. It 's for com- 
 pany to-day, an' fer Sundays, an' to go to Portsmouth." 
 
 " Don't spoil it for her, Mrs. Hoskins. Children hate 
 to think it is n't for every day," said Leslie Goldthwaite. 
 
 But the child-antidote to that was also ready. 
 
 " I don't care," cried Prissy. " To-day 's a great, 
 long day, and Sunday 's for ever and ever, and Ports- 
 mouth '11 be always." 
 
 " GarCt yer stop ter kerchy, and say — Luddolight 'n 
 massy, I donno what to tell ye ter say ! " And Mrs. 
 Hoskins sniffled and gurgled again, and gave it up. 
 
 " She has thanked us, I think," said Miss Craydocke, 
 in her simple way, " when she called us God-mothers ! " 
 The word came home to her good heart. God had given 
 her, the lonely woman, the larger motherhood. " Broth- 
 ers, and sisters, and mothers ! " / She thought how Christ 
 traced out the relationships, and claimed them even to 
 himself ! / 
 
 " Now, for once, you 're to be done up. That 's gen- 
 eral order number two," Miss Craydocke said to the 
 Josselyn girls, as they all first met together again after 
 the Cliff party. " We 've worked together till we 're 
 friends. And so there 's not a word to be said. W« 
 
A SXTMMER D. LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. Id? 
 
 owe you time that we 've taken, and more that we mean 
 to take before you ga. I '11 tell you what for, when it 's 
 flecessary." 
 
 It was a nicer matter to get the Josselyns to be helped 
 than to help. It was not easy for them to bring forth 
 their breadths and their linings, and their braids that 
 were to be pieced, and their trimmings that were to be 
 turned, and to lay bare to other eyes all their little econ- 
 omies of contrivance ; but Miss Craydocke managed it by 
 simple straightforwardness, — by not behaving as if there 
 weie anything to be glossed over or ignored. Instead of 
 husnmg up about economies, she brought them forward, 
 and gave them a most cheery and comfortable, not to say 
 dignified air. It was all ordinary matter of course, — 
 the way everybody did, or ought to do. This was the 
 fr-eshest end of this breadth, and should go down ; this 
 other had a darn that might be cut across, and a straight 
 piecing made, for which the slope of the skirt would al 
 low, — she should do it so ; that hem might be taken oB 
 altogether and a new one turned ; this was a very nice 
 trin.ming, and plenty of it, and the wrong side was 
 brighter than the right ; she knew a way of joining 
 worsted braid that never showed, — you might have a 
 dozen pieces in the binding of a skirt and not be noticed. 
 This little blue frock had no trimming ; they would finish 
 that at home. No, the prettiest thing in the world for it 
 would be pipings of black silk, and Miss Craydocke had 
 liome bits just right for covering cord, thick as a board, 
 big enough for nothing else ; and out they came, as did 
 many another thing, without remark, from her bags and 
 baskets. She had hooks and eyes, and button-fasteners, 
 
168 A SUMMER TN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 when these gave out ; she used from her own cotton 
 spools and skeins of silk ; she had tailors' twist for but- 
 ton-holes, and large black cord for the pipings ; and these 
 were but working implements, like scissors and thimble, 
 — taken for granted, without count. There was nothing 
 on the surface for the most shrinking dehcacy to rub 
 against ; but there was a kindness that went down into 
 the hearts of the two young girls continually. 
 
 For an hour or two at least each day they sat together 
 so, for the being together. The work was " taken up." 
 Dakie Thayne read stories to them sometimes ; Miss 
 Craydocke had something always to produce and to sum- 
 mon them to sit and hear, — some sketch of strange ad- 
 venture, or a ghost-marvel, or a bright, spicy magazine- 
 essay ; or, knowing where to find sympathizers and 
 helpers, Dakie would rush in upon them uncalled, with 
 some discovery, or want, or beautiful thing to show of his 
 own. They were quite a little coterie by themselves. 
 It shaped itself to this more and more. 
 
 Leslie did not neglect her own party. She drove and 
 wallied with Mrs. Linceford, and was ready for anything 
 the Haddens really wanted of her ; but Mrs. Linceford 
 napped and lounged a good deal, and could spare her 
 then; and Jeannie and Elinor seemed somehow to feel 
 the want of her less than they had done, — Elinor un- 
 jonsciously drawn away by new attraction, Jeannie 
 rather of a purpose. 
 
 I am afraid I cannot call it anything else but a littlf 
 loss of caste which seemed coming to Leslie Goldthwaitc 
 Just now, through these new intimacies of hers. " Some- 
 thing always gets crowded out." This, too, — her popu 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 169 
 
 larity among the first, — might have to be, perhaps, one 
 of die snmethings. 
 
 Now and then she felt it so, — perceived the shade of 
 difference toward her in the tone and manner of these 
 young girls. I cannot say that it did not hurt her a 
 L'ttle. She had self-love, of course ; yet, for all, she waa 
 loyal to tne more generous love, — to the truer self-re- 
 spect. If she could not have both, she would keep the 
 best. There came to be a little pride in her own de- 
 meanor, — a waiting to be sought again. 
 
 *' I can't think what has come over Les'," said Jeannie 
 Hadden, one night, on the piazza, to a knot of girls. 
 Sne spoke in a tone at once apologetic and annoyed. 
 " She was always up to anything at home. I thought 
 she meant to lead us all off here. She might have done 
 almost what she pleased." 
 
 " Everybody likes Leslie," said Elinor. 
 
 "Why, yes, we all do," put in Mattie Shannon. 
 " Only she will take up queer people, you see. And — 
 well, they 're nice enough, I suppose ; only there 's never 
 room enough for everybody." 
 
 " I thought we were all to be nowhere when she first 
 came. There was something about her, — I don't know 
 what, — not wonderful, but taking. ' Put her where 
 you pleased, she was the central point of the picture,' 
 Frank said." This came from Josie Scherman. 
 
 " And she 's just dropped all, to run after goodness 
 knows what and whom ! I can't see through her I " re- 
 joined Jeannie, with a sort of finality in her accent that 
 seemed to imply, " I wash my hands of her, and woii'l 
 be supposed accountable." 
 8 
 
170 A StJMMEE IS LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 " Knew ye not," broke in a gentlft voice, " that she 
 must be about her Master's business?" it was scaiceiy 
 addressed to them. Miss Craydocke just breathed au- 
 dibly the thought she could not help. 
 
 There came a downfall of silence upon the group. 
 
 When they took breath again, — " O, if she 's relig- 
 ious ! " Mattie Shannon just said, as of a thing yet far- 
 ther off and more finally done with. And then then 
 talk waited under a restraint again. 
 
 " I supposed we were all religious, — Sundays, at 
 least," broke forth Sin Saxon suddenly, who, strangely, 
 had not spoken before. " I don't know, though. Last 
 Saturday night we danced the German till half past 
 twelve, and we talked charades instead of going to 
 church, till I felt — as if I 'd sat all the morning with my 
 feet over a register, reading a novel, when I 'd ought to 
 have been doing a German exercise or something. If she 's 
 religious every day, she 's seven times better than we are, 
 that 's all. ^ I think — she 's got a knot to her thread ! "/ 
 
 Nobody dared send Leslie Goldthwaite quite to Cov- 
 entry after this. 
 
 Sin Saxon found herself in the position of many an- 
 other leader, — obliged to make some demonstration to 
 satisfy the aroused expectations of her followers. Her 
 heart was no longer thoroughly in it ; but she had prom- 
 ised them a " howl," and a howl they were determmed 
 upon, either with or against her. 
 
 Opportunity arose just now also. Madam Routh went 
 »fF on a party to the Notch, with some New York friends, 
 taking with her one or two of the younger pupils, for 
 whom she felt most constant responsibility. The feldei 
 
A SUMAIER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 171 
 
 girls were domesticated and acquainted now at Outledge : 
 there were several matronly ladies with whom the whole 
 party was suiEciently associated in daily intercourse for 
 all the air of chaperonage that might be needed ; and one 
 assistant pupil, whom, to be sure, the young ladies them- 
 selves counted as a most convenient nonentity, was left 
 In nominal charge. 
 
 Now or never, the girls declared with one voice it 
 must be. All they knew about it — the most of them — 
 was that it was some sort of an out-of-hours frolic, such 
 as boarding-school ne'er-do-weels delight in ; and it was 
 to plague Miss Craydocke, against whom, by this time, 
 they had none of them really any manner of spite ; 
 neither had they any longer the idea of forcing her to 
 evacuate ; but they had got wound up on that key at the 
 beginning, and nobody thought of changing it. Nobody 
 but Sin Saxon. She had begun, perhaps, to have a little 
 feeling that she would change it, if she could. 
 
 Nevertheless, with such show of heartiness as she 
 found possible, she assented to tlieir demand, and the time 
 was fixed. Her merry, mischievous temperament as- 
 serted itself as she went on, until she really grew into 
 the mood for it once more, for the pure fun of the thing. 
 
 It took two days to get ready. After the German on 
 Thursday night, the howl was announced to come off in 
 Number Thirteen, West Wing. This, of course, was the 
 boudoir ; but nobody but the initiated knew that. It was 
 supposed to be Maud Walcotl's room. The assistant pu- 
 pil made faint remonstrances against sne knew not what, 
 and was politely told so ; moreover, she was pressingly 
 invited to render herself with the other guests at the little 
 
172 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 piazza door, precisely at eleven. The matronly ladies, 
 always amused, sometimes a little annoyed and scandal- 
 ized at Sin Saxon's escapades, asked her, one and an- 
 other, at different times, what it was all to be, and if she 
 really thought she had better, and among themselves 
 expressed tolerably grave doubts about proprieties and 
 wished Madame Routh would return. The vague mys- 
 tery and excitement of the howl kept all the house 
 gently agog for this Tuesday and Wednesday interven- 
 ing. Sin Saxon gave out odd hints here and there in 
 confidence. 
 
 It was to be a " spread " ; and the " grub " (Sin was 
 a boarding-school girl, you know, and had brothers in 
 college) was to be all stolen. There was an uncommon 
 clearance of cakes and doughnuts, and pie and cheese, 
 from each meal, at this time. Cup-custards, even, disap- 
 peared, — cups and all. A cold supper, laid at nine on 
 Wednesday evening, for some expected travellers, turned 
 out a more meagre provision on the arrival of the guests 
 than the good host of the Giant's Cairn had ever been 
 known to make. At bedtime Sin Saxon presented her- 
 self in Miss Craydocke's room. 
 
 " There 's something heavy on my conscience," she 
 said, with a disquiet air. " I 'm really worried ; and it 's 
 too late to help it now." 
 
 Miss Craydocke looked at her with a kind anxiety. 
 
 " It 's never too late to try to help a mistake. And yoii. 
 Miss Saxon, — you can always do what you choose." 
 
 She was afraid for her, — the good lady, — that her heed- 
 lessness might compromise herself and others in some 
 untoward scrape. She did n't like these rumors of the 
 
A SCMMEK IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 173 
 
 howl, — the last thing she thought of being her own rest 
 Slid comfort, which were to be purposely invaded. 
 
 " I 've let the chance go by," said Sin Saxon, despe- 
 rately. " It 's of no use now." And she locked herself 
 back and forth in the Shaker chair, of which she had 
 taken possession. 
 
 " My dear," said Miss Craydocke, " if you would only 
 explain to me, — perhaps — " 
 
 " You might ! " cried Sin, jumping up, and making a 
 rush at the good woman, seizing her by both hands. 
 "They'd never suspect you. It's that cold roast 
 chicken in the pantry. I carCt get over it, that I did n't 
 take that ! " 
 
 Sin was incorrigible. Miss Craydocke shook her head, 
 taking care to turn it aside at the same moment ; for 
 she felt her lips twitch and her eyes twinkle, in spite of 
 herself. 
 
 " I won't take this till the time comes," said Sin, lay- 
 ing her hand on the back of the Shaker chair. " But 
 it's confiscated for to-morrow night, and I shall come for 
 it. And, Miss Craydocke, if you do manage about the 
 chicken, — I hate to trouble you to go down stairs, but I 
 dare say you want matches, or a drink of water,- or 
 something, and another time I '11 wait upon you with 
 pleasure, — here 's the door, — made for the emergency, 
 — and I on the other side of it dissolved in tears of grati- 
 tude ! " 
 
 And so, for the time. Sin Saxon disappeared. 
 
 The next afternoon, Jimmy Wigley brought a big bas- 
 ket of raspberries to the little piazza door. A pitcher 
 »f cream vanished from the tea-table just before the gong 
 
174 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE S LIFE. 
 
 was struck. Nobody supposed the cat had got it. The 
 people of the house understood pretty well what was 
 going on, and who was at the bottom of it all ; but 
 Madam Routh's party was large, and the life of the 
 place ; they would wink hard and long before com- 
 plaining at anything that might be done in the west 
 w'ng. 
 
 Sin Saxon opened her door upon Miss Craydocke when 
 she was dressed for the German, and about to go down 
 stairs. " I '11 trust you," she said, " about the rocking- 
 chair. You '11 want it, perhaps, till bedtime, and then 
 you '11 just put it in here. I should n't like to disturb 
 you by coming for it late. And please step in a minute 
 now, won't you ? " 
 
 She took her through the boudoir. There lay the 
 " sj)read " upon a long table, contrived by the contribu- 
 tion of one ordinary little one from each sleeping-cham- 
 ber, and covered by a pair of clean sheets, which swept 
 the floor along the sides. About it were ranged chairs. 
 Two pyramids of candles, built up ingeniously by the 
 grouping of bedroom tins upon hidden supports, vine- 
 sprays and mosses serving gracefully for concealment and 
 decoration, stood, one on each side, half-way between 
 the ends and centre. Cake-plates were garnished with 
 wreathed oak-leave,=, and in the midst a great white 
 Indian basket held the red, piled-up berries, fresl and 
 fragrant. 
 
 " That 's the little bit of righteousness to save the city. 
 That 's paid for," said Sin Saxon. " Jimmy Wigley '? 
 gone home with more scrip than he ever got at once be- 
 fore ; and if your chicken heartedness had n't. taken ths 
 
A SUMMER DJ LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 175 
 
 vrong direction, Miss Craydocke, I should be perfectly at 
 easo in my mind."' 
 
 " It s very pretty," said Miss Craydocke ; " but do 
 you think Madam Routh would quite approve ? And 
 why could n't you have had it openly in the dining-room? 
 And what do you call it a ' howl ' for ? " Miss Cray- 
 dfxike's questions came softly and hesitatingly, as her 
 doubts came. The little festival was charming — but for 
 the way and place. 
 
 " O Miss Craydocke I Well, you 're not wicked, and 
 you can't be supposed to know ; but you must take my 
 word for it, that, if it was tamed down, the game wouldn't 
 be worth the candle. And the howl ? You just wait 
 and see ! " 
 
 The invited guests were told to come to the little 
 piazza door. The girls asked all their partners in the 
 German, and the matronly ladies were asked, as a good 
 many respectable people are civilly invited where their 
 declining is counted upon. Leslie Goldthwaite, and the 
 Haddens, and Mrs. Linceford, and the Thoresbys were 
 all asked, and might come if they chose. Their stay 
 would be another matter. And so the evening and the 
 German went on. 
 
 TiU eleven, when they broke up ; and the entertainers 
 in a body rushed merrily and noisily along the passages 
 to Number Thirteen, West Wing, rousing from their first 
 naps many qnietly disposed, delicate people, who kept 
 early hours, and a few babies whose nurses and mammas 
 would bear tliem anything but gratefully in mind through 
 Uie midnight hours to come. 
 
 They gained two minutes, perhaps, upon tbeir gaesta, 
 
176 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 who had, some of them, to look up wraps, and to come 
 round by the front hall and piazzas. In these two minutes, 
 by Sin Saxon's order, they seated themselves comfortably 
 at table. They had plenty of room ; but they spread their 
 robes gracefully, — they had all dressed in their very pret- 
 tiest to-night, — and they quite filled up the space. Bright 
 colors, and soft, rich textures floating and mingling to- 
 gether, were like a rainbow encircling the feast. The 
 candles had been touched with kerosene, and matches 
 lay ready. The lighting-up had been done in an instant. 
 And then Sin Saxon went to the door, and drew back the 
 chintz curtains from across the upper half, which was of 
 glass. A group of the guests, young men, were already 
 there, beneath the elms outside. But how should she see 
 them, looking from the bright light into the tree-shadows ? 
 She went quietly back, and took her place at the head, 
 leaving the door fast bolted. 
 
 There came a knock. Sin Saxon took no heed, but 
 smilingly addressed herself to offering dainties right and 
 left. Some of the girls stared, and one or two half rose 
 to go and give admittance. 
 
 " Keep your seats," said Sin, in her most ladylike way 
 and tone, with the unchanged smile upon her face. 
 '■'■That's, the howl!" 
 
 They began to perceive the joke outside. They began 
 to knock vociferously. They took up their cue with a 
 readiness, and made plenty of noise -, not doubting, as yet, 
 that they should be admitted at last. Some of the ladies 
 came round, gave a glance, saw how things were going 
 and retreated ; — except a few, parties from other houses 
 who had escorts among the gentlemen, and who waited a 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOiDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 177 
 
 fittle to see how the frolic would end, or at least to re 
 claim their attendants. 
 
 Well, it was very unpardonable, — outrageous, the 
 scandalized neighbors were beginning already to say in 
 their rooms. Even Sin Saxon had a little excitement in 
 her eye beyond the fun, as she still maintained the most 
 gracefiil order within, and the exchange of courtesies 
 went on around the board, and the tumult increased with 
 out. They tree-toaded, they catcalled, they shouted, they 
 cheered, they howled, they even hissed. Sin Saxon sat 
 motionless an instant when it came to that, and gave a 
 glance toward the lights. A word from her would put 
 them out, and end the whole. She held her coup in 
 reserve, however, knowing her resource, and sat, as it 
 were, with her finger on the spring, determined to carry 
 through coolly what she had begun. 
 
 Dakie Thayne had gone away with the Linceford party 
 when they crossed to the Green Cottage. Afterward, 
 he came out again and stood in the open road. Some 
 ladies, boarders at Blashford's, up above, came slowly 
 away from the uproar, homeward. One or two young 
 men detached themselves from the group on the piazza, 
 and followed to see them safe, as it belonged to them to 
 do. The rest sat themselves down, at this moment, upon 
 the steps and platform, and struck up, with one accord, 
 " We won't go home till morning." In the midst of this, a 
 part broke off and took up, discordantly, the refrain, 
 " Polly put the kettle on, we '11 all have tea " ; others 
 complicated the confusion further with " Cruel, cruel, 
 Folly Hopkins, treat me so -:— oh ! treat me so ! " Tiii 
 jliey fell, at last, into an indistinguishable jumble and 
 
 !• I, 
 
178 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 
 
 clamor, from which extricated themselves now and ag.iiii, 
 and prevailed, the choruses of "Upidee," and "Bum-bum- 
 bye," with an occasional drum-beat of emphasis given upon 
 the door. 
 
 " Don't go back there, James," Dakie Thayne heard 8 
 voice from tlie retiring party say as they passed him,— 
 " it 's disgraceful ! " 
 
 "The house won't hold Sin Saxon after this," said 
 another. " They were out in the upper hall, half a dozen 
 of them, just now, ringing their bells and calling for Mr. 
 Biscombe." 
 
 " The poor man don't know who to side with. He don'l 
 want to lose the whole west wing. After all, there must 
 be young people in the house, and if it were n't one thing 
 it would be another. It 's only a few fidgets that complain. 
 They '11 hush up and go off presently, and the whole thing 
 will be a joke over the breakfast-table to-morrow morning, 
 after everybody 's had a little sleep." 
 
 The singing died partially away, just then, and some 
 growling, less noisy, but more in earnest, began. 
 
 " They don't mean to let us in ! I say, this is getting 
 rather rough ! " 
 
 " It 's only to smash a pane of glass above the bolt, and 
 let ourselves in. Why should n't we ? We 're invited." 
 The latent mob-element was very near developing itself 
 in these young gentlemen, liigh-bred, but irate. 
 
 At this moment, a wagon came whirling down the road 
 (tround the ledges. Dakie Thayne caught sight of the two 
 white leaders, recognized them, and flew across to the 
 hotel. " Stop I " cried he. At the same instant a figure 
 moved hastily away from behind Miss Craydocke's blinds 
 
A SUMMER IN LESUE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 179 
 
 It was a mercy that the wagon had driven around to the 
 front hall door. 
 
 A mercy in one way ; but the misfortune was that the 
 Bupper-party within knew nothing of it. A musical, lady- 
 like laugh, quite in contrast to the demonstrative utter^ 
 ances outside, had just broken forth, in response to one 
 of Sin Saxon's brightest speeches, when through the ad- 
 joining apartment came suddenly upon them the unlooked- 
 for apparition of " the spinster." Miss Craydocke went 
 straight across to the beleaguered door, drew the bolt, and 
 threw it back. " Gently, young gentlemen ! Draw up 
 the piazza chairs, if you please, and sit down," said she. 
 " Mr. Lowe, Mr. Brookhouse, here are plates ; will you 
 be kind enough to serve your friends?" 
 
 In three minutes she had filled and passed outward 
 half a dozen saucers of fruit, and sent a basket of cake 
 among them. Then she drew a seat for herself, and 
 began to eat raspberries. It was all done so quickly — 
 they were so entirely taken by surprise — that nobody, 
 inside or out, gainsaid or delayed her by a word 
 
 It was hardly done when a knock sounded at tne door 
 upon the passage. " Young ladies ! " a voice called, — 
 Madam Routh's. 
 
 She and her friends had driven down from the Notch 
 by sunset and moonlight. Nobody had said anything to 
 her of the disturbance when she came in ; her arrival 
 had rather stopped the complaints that had begun ; for 
 people are not malignant, after all, as a general thing, and 
 Lhere is a curious propensity in human nature which 
 cools off indignation even at the greatest crimes, just as 
 the culprit is likely to suffer. We are apt to ?heck the 
 
180 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 foot just as we might have planted it upon the noxious 
 creature, and to let off great state criminals on parole. 
 Madam Routh had seen the bright light and the gather- 
 ing about the west wing. She had caught some sounds 
 of the commotion. She made her way at once to look 
 after her charge. 
 
 Sin Saxon was not a pupil now, and there was no con- 
 dign punishment actually to fear ; but her heart stood still 
 a second, for all that, and she realized that she had been 
 on the verge of an " awful scrape." It was bad enough 
 now, as Madam Routh stood there, gravely silent. She 
 could not approve. She was amazed to see Miss Cray- 
 docke present, countenancing and matronizing. But 
 Miss Craydocke was present, and it altered the whole 
 face of affairs. Her eye took in, too, the modification of 
 the room, — quite an elegant little private parlor as it 
 had been made. The young men were gathered deco- 
 rously about the doorway and upon the platform, one or 
 two only politely assisting within. They had taken tliis 
 cue as readily as the other ; indeed, they were by no 
 means aware that this was cot the issue intended from 
 the beginning, long as the joke had been allowed to go 
 on, and their good-humor and courtesy had been instantly 
 restored. Miss Craydocke, by one master-stroke of gen- 
 erous presence of mind, had achieved an instantaneous 
 change in the position, and given an absolutely new com- 
 plexion to the performance. 
 
 " It is late, young ladies," was all Madam Routh's re- 
 mark at length. 
 
 " They gave up their German early on purpose ; it was 
 a little surprise they planned," Miss Craydocke said, as 
 she moved to meet her. 
 
A :5UMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 181 
 
 And then Madam Routh, with wise, considerate dig- 
 aity, took her cue. She even came forward to the table 
 and accepted a Httle fruit ; stayed five minutes, perhaps, 
 and then, without a spoken word, her movement to go 
 broke up, with unmistakable intent, the party. Fifteen 
 minutes after, all was quiet in the west wing. 
 
 But Sin Saxon, when the doors closed at either hand, 
 and the girls alone were left around the fragments of 
 their feast, rushed impetuously across toward Miss Cray- 
 docke, and went down beside her on her knees. 
 
 " O you dear, magnificent old Christian ! " she cried 
 out, and laid her head down on her lap, with little sobs, 
 half laughter and half tears. 
 
 " There, there ! " — and Miss Craydocke softly patted 
 her golden hair, and spoke as she would soothe a fretted 
 and excited child. 
 
 Next morning, at breakfast, Sin Saxon was as beauti- 
 fully ruffled, ratted, and crimped, — as gay, as bewitch- 
 ing, and defiant as ever, — seated next Madam Routh, 
 assiduously devoted to her in the little attentions of the 
 meal, in high spirits and favor; even saucily alluding, 
 across the table, to " our howl, Miss Craydocke ! " 
 
 Public opinion was carried by storm ; the benison of 
 sleep had laid wrath. Nobody knew that, an hour be- 
 fore, she had been in Madam Routh's room, making a 
 clean breast of the whole transaction, and disclosing the 
 truth of Miss Craydocke's magnanimous and tactful inteiy 
 position, confessing that without this she had been at her 
 wits' ends how to put a stop to it, and promising, like a 
 lorry child, to behave better, and never do so any more. 
 
 Two hours later she came meekly to Miss Craydocke's 
 
182 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 room, where the " bee ' was gathered, — for mere com- 
 panionship to-day, with chess and fancy-work, -^ hei 
 flourishes all laid aside, her very hair brushed close to 
 her pretty head, and a plain gingham dress on. 
 
 "Miss Craydocke!" she said, with an air she could 
 not divest of a little comicality, but with an earnestness 
 behind it shining through her eyes, " I 'm good ; I 'm 
 converted. I want some tow-cloth to sew on immediate- 
 ly." And she sat down, folding her hands, waiting. 
 
 Miss Craydocke laughed. " I don't know. I 'an 
 afi'aid I have n't anything to be done just now, unless I 
 cut out some very coarse, heavy homespun." 
 / " I 'd be glad if you would. Beggars must n't be 
 choosers ; but if they might, I should say it was the very 
 thing. Sackcloth, you know ; and then, perhaps, the 
 ashes might be excused. I 'm in solemn earnest, though. 
 I 'm reformed. You 've done it ; and you," she added, 
 turning round short on Leslie Goldthwaite, — " you 've 
 been at it a long time, unbeknownst to yourself; and you, 
 ma'am, — you finished it last night. It's been like the 
 casting out of the devils in Scripture. They aliva^s giye 
 a howl, you know, and go out of 'em I " 
 
A SirMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTUWAITFS LIFE. 183 
 
 XI. 
 
 SIN SAXON came heart and soul into Miss Cray- 
 docke's generous and delicate plans. The work was 
 done, to be sure. The third trunk, that had been " full 
 of old winter-dresses to be made over," was locked upon 
 the nice little completed frocks and sacks that forestalled 
 the care and hurry of " fall work " for the overburdened 
 mother, and should gladden her unexpecting eyes, as such 
 store only can gladden the anxious family manager who 
 feels the changeful, shortening days to come treading, with 
 their speedy demands, upon the very skirts of long, golden, 
 Bunshiny August hours. 
 
 Susan and Martha Josselyn felt, on their part, as only 
 busy workers feel who fasten the last thread, or dash a 
 neriod to the last page, and turn around to breathe the 
 breath of the free, and choose for once and for a while 
 what they shall do. The first hour of this freedom rested 
 them more than the whole six weeks that they had been 
 getting half-rest, with the burden still upon their thought 
 and always waiting for their hands. It was like the first 
 half-day to children, when school has closed and books are 
 brought home for the long vacation. All the possible 
 delight of coming weeks is distilled to one delicious drop, 
 and tasted then. 
 
 "It's ' none of my funeral,' I know," Sin Saxon said 
 to Miss Craydocke. " I 'm only an eleventh-hour helper ; 
 but I '11 come in for the holiaay business, if you '11 let me ; 
 tnd perhaps, after all, that 's more in my line." 
 
184 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Everything seemed to be in her hne that she once took 
 hold of. She had Httle private consultations with Misa 
 Craydocke. " It 's to be your party to Feather-Cap, but it 
 shall be my j)arty to Minster Rock," she said. " Leave 
 that to me, please. Now the howl 's off my hands, I fee' 
 equal to anything." 
 
 Just in time for the party to Minster Rock, a great 
 basket and box from home an-ived for Sin Saxon. In the 
 first were delicious early peaches, rose-color and gold, 
 wrapped one by one in soft paper and laid among fine 
 sawdust ; early pears also, with the summer incense in 
 their spiciness ; greenhouse grapes, white and amber and 
 purple. The other held delicate cakes and confections 
 unknown to Outledge, as carefully put up, and quite fresh 
 and unharmed. " Everything comes in right for me," 
 she exclaimed, running back and forth to Miss Craydocke 
 with new and more charming discoveries as she excavated. 
 Not a word did she say of the letter that had gone down 
 from her four days before, asking her mother for these 
 things, and to send her some money ; " for a party," she 
 told her, " that she would rather give here than to have 
 her usual summer fSte after her return." 
 
 " You quite eclipse and extinguish my poor little doings," 
 said Miss Craydocke, admiring and rejoicing all the while 
 as genuinely as Sin herself. 
 
 " Dear Miss Craydocke ! " cried the girl, " if I thought 
 it would seem like that, I would send and tip them all into 
 the river. But you, — you can't be eclipsed ! Your orbit 
 cuns too high above ours." 
 
 Sin Saxon's brightness and independence, that lapsed 
 lb easily into ^auciness, and made it so hard for her U 
 
A SOMMEK IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFF 186 
 
 observe the mere conventionalisms of respect, in no way 
 hindered the real reverence that grew in her toward the 
 superiority she recognized, and that now softened her ton* 
 to a tenderness of humility before her friend. 
 
 There was a grace upon her in these days that all saw 
 Over her real wit and native vivacity, it was like a por 
 celain shade about a flame. One could look at it, and be 
 glad of it, without winking. The brightness was all there, 
 but there was a difference in the giving forth. What had 
 been a bit self-centred and self-conscious — bright as if 
 only for being bright and for dazzling — was outgoing and 
 self-forgetful, and so softened. Leslie Goldthwaite read 
 by it a new answer to some of lier old questions. " What 
 harm is there in it?" ehe had: asked herself on their first 
 meeting, when Sin Saxon's overflow of merry mischief, 
 that yet did " no special or obvious good," made her so 
 taking, — so the centre of whatever group into which she 
 came. Afterward, when, running to its height, this spirit 
 showed in behavior that raised misgivings among the scru- 
 pulous and orderly that would not let them any longer be 
 wholly amused, and came near betraying her, or actually 
 did betray her, into indecorums beyond excuse or counte- 
 nance, Leslie had felt the harm, and begun to shrink away. 
 " Nothing lut leaves " came back to her ; her summer 
 thought recurred and drew to itself a new illustration. 
 This it was to have no aim but to rustle and flaunt ; to grow 
 leaves continually ; to make one's self central and conspic- 
 uous, and to fill great space. But now among these very 
 leaves gleamed something goiden and glorious ; something 
 was ripening suddenly out that had lain unseen in its 
 greenness; the time of figs seemed coming. Sin Saxon was 
 
186 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 intent upon inevr purpose ; something to be done would not 
 let her "stand upon the order" or the fashion of her 
 doing. She forgot her little airs, that had been apt to 
 detract from her very wit, and leave it only smartness ; 
 bright things came to her, and she uttered and acted 
 them; but they seemed involuntary and only on the way; 
 she could not help hprself, and nobody would have had it 
 helped ; she was still Sin Saxon ; but she had simply told 
 the truth in her wayward way that morning. Miss Cray- 
 docke had done it, with her kindly patience that was no 
 stupidity, her simple dignity that never lowered itself and 
 that therefore could not be lowered, and her quiet con- 
 tinuance in generous well-doing, — and Sin Saxon was 
 different. She was won to a perception of the really best 
 in life, — that which this plain old spinster, with her 
 " scrap of lace and a front," had found worth living for 
 after the golden days were over. The impulse of temper- 
 ament, and the generosity which made everything in- 
 stant and entire with her, acted in this also, and car- 
 ried her full over to an enthusiasm of affectionate co- 
 operation. 
 
 There were a few people at Outledge — of the sort who, 
 hiving once made up their minds that no good is ever to 
 come out of Nazareth, see all things in the light of that 
 conviction — who would not allow the praise of any volun- 
 tary amendment to this tempering and new direction of 
 Sin's vivacity, " It was time she was put down," they 
 said, " and they were glad that it was done. That las* 
 outbreak had finished her. She might as well run after 
 people now, whom she had never noticed before : it was 
 plain there was nothing else left for her : her place wa» 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 187 
 
 gone, and her reign was over." Of all others, Mi-s. 
 Thoresby insisted upon this most strongly. 
 
 The whole school-party had considerably subsided. 
 Madam Routh held a tighter rein; but that Sin Saxon 
 had a place and a power still, she found ways to show 
 in a new spirit. Into a quiet corner of the dancing-hall, 
 — skimming her way, with the dance yet in her feet, be- 
 tween groups of staid observers, — she came straight, one 
 evening, from a bright, spirited figure of the German, and 
 stretched her hand to Martha Josselyn. "It's in your 
 eyes," she whispered, — " come ! " 
 
 Night after night Martha Josselyn had sat there, with 
 the waltz-music in her ears, and her little feet, that had 
 nad one merry winter's training before the war, and many 
 a home practice since with the younger ones, quivering to 
 the time beneath her robes, and seen other girls chosen 
 out and led away, — young matrons, and little short-petti- 
 coated children even, taken to " excursionize " between 
 ihe figures, — while nobody thought of her. " I might 
 be ninety, or a cripple," she said to her sister, " from theii 
 taking for granted it is nothing to me. How is it thai 
 everything goes by, and I only twenty ? " There had 
 been danger that Martha. Josselyn 's sweet, generous tem- 
 per should get a dash of sour, only because of there lying 
 alongside it a clear common-sense and a pure instinct of 
 justice. Susan's heart longed with a motherly tenderness 
 for her young sister when she said such words, — longed 
 to put all pleasant things somehow within her reach. 
 She had given it up for herself, years since. And now, 
 all at once. Sin Saxon came and " tooi her out." 
 
 It was a more generous act than it shows for, written. 
 
188 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 There is a little tacit consent about such things which feis 
 young people of a "set" have thought, desire, or courage 
 to disregard. Sin Saxon never did anything more grace- 
 fully. It was one of the moments that came now, when 
 she wist not that she shone. She was dropping, little by 
 little, in the reality of a better desire^ that "satisfaction" 
 Jeannie Hadden had spoken of, of " knowing when one is 
 at one's prettiest," or doing one's cleverest. The " leaf 
 and the fruit " never fitted better in their significance than 
 to Sin Saxon. Something intenser and more truly living 
 was taking the place of the mere flutter and flash and 
 grace of effect. 
 
 It was the figure in which the dancers form in facing 
 columns, two and two, the girls and the young men ; 
 when the "four hands round" keeps them moving in 
 bright circles all along the floor, and under arches of 
 raised and joined hands the girls came down, two and two, 
 to the end, forming their long line face to face against the 
 apposing line of their partners. The German may be, in 
 many respects, an undesirable dance ; it may be, as I 
 have sometimes thought, at least a selfish dance, affording 
 pleasure chiefly to the initiated few, and excluding grad- 
 ually almost fi:om society itself those who do not partici- 
 pate in it. I speak of it here neither to uphold nor to 
 condemn, — simply because they did dance it at Outledge 
 as they do everywhere, and I cannot tell my story with- 
 out it ; but I think at this moment, when Sin Saxon led 
 the figure with Martha Josselyn, there was something 
 tovely, not alone in its graceful grouping, but in the very 
 spirit and possibility of the thing that so appeared. There 
 ig scope and chance even here young girls, for the beauty 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 189 
 
 of kindness and generous thought/^ Even here, one may 
 give a joy, may soothe a neglect, may make some heart 
 conscious for a moment of the great warmth of a human 
 welcome ; and, though it be but to a pastime, I think it 
 comes into the benison of the Master's words, when, even 
 for this, some spirit gets a feeling hke them, — "I was a 
 stranger, and ye took me in." — , 
 
 Some one, standing behind where Leslie Goldthwaite 
 came to her place at the end of the hne by the hall-door, 
 had followed and interpreted the whole ; had read the 
 rare, shy pleasure in Martha Josselyn's face and move- 
 ment, the bright, expressive warmth in Sin Saxon's, and 
 the half-surprise of observation upon others ; and he 
 thought as I do. 
 
 Z'" ' Friends of the mammon of unrighteousness.' That 
 girl has even sanctified the German ! 'L ^ 
 
 There was only one voice like that, — only one person 
 who would so speak himself out. Leslie Goldthwaite 
 turned quickly, and found herself face to face with Marma- 
 duke Wharne. " I am so glad you have come ! " said she. 
 
 He regarded her shrewdly. " Then you can do with- 
 iiut me," he said. " I did n't know by this time how it 
 might be." 
 
 The last two had taken their places below Leslie whUe 
 these words were exchanged, and now the whole line 
 moved forward to meet their partners, and the waltz 
 began. Frank Scherman had got back to-day, and was 
 iancing with Sin Saxon. Leslie and Dakie Thayne were 
 together, as they had been that first evening at Jefferson, 
 and as they often were. The four stopped, after their 
 merry whirl, in this same comer by the door where Mr. 
 
190 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Wharne was standing. Dakie Thayne shook hands with 
 his friend in his glad boy's way. Across their greetings 
 came Sin Saxon's words, spoken to her companion, — 
 " You 're to take her, Frank." Frank Scherman was an 
 old childhood's friend, not a mere mountain acquaintance. 
 " I '11 bring up plenty of others first, but you 're to wait 
 and take her. And, wherever she got her training, you'll 
 find she 's the featest-footed among us." It was among 
 the children — training them — that she had caught the 
 trick of it, but Sin Saxon did not know. 
 
 "I 'm ready to agree with you, with but just the 
 reservation that you could not make," Frank Scherman 
 answered. 
 
 " Nonsense," said Sin Saxon. " But stop ! here 's 
 something better and quicker. They 're getting the bou- 
 quets. Give her yours. It 's your turn. Go ! " 
 
 Sin Saxon's blue eyes sparkled like two stars ; the 
 golden mist of her hair was tossed into lighter clouds by 
 exercise ; on her cheeks a bright rose-glow burned ; and 
 the lips parted with their sweetest, because most uncon- 
 scious, curve over the tiny gleaming teeth. Her word 
 and her glance sent Frank Scherman straight to do her 
 bidding ; and a bunch of wild azalias and scarlet lilies was 
 laid in Martha Josselyn's hand, and she was taken out 
 again into the dance by the best partner there. We may 
 trust her to Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman, and her 
 own " feat-footedness " ; everything will not go by her 
 tmy more, and she but twenty, 
 
 Marmaduke Wharne watched it all with that keen 
 glance of his that was likt) a level line of fire from under 
 the rough, gray brows. 
 
A SUMMER ni LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 191 
 
 " I am glad you saw that," said Leslie Goldthwaite, 
 tratching also, and watching him. 
 
 " By the light of your own little text, — ' kind, and 
 bright, and pleasant ' ? You think it will do me good ? " 
 
 " I think it was good ; and I am glad you should 
 really know Sin Saxon — at the first." And at the 
 best ; Marmaduke Wharne quite understood her. She 
 gave him, unconsciously, the key to a whole character. 
 It might as easily have been something quite diflFerent 
 that he should have first seen in this young girl. 
 
 Next morning they all met on the piazza. Leslie 
 Goldthwaite presented Sin Saxon to Mr. Wharne. 
 
 "So, my dear," he said, without preface, "you are the 
 belle of the place ? " 
 
 He looked to see how she would take it. There was 
 not the first twinkle of a simper about eye or lip. Sur- 
 prised, but quite gravely, she looked up, and met his odd 
 bluntness with as quaint an honesty of her own. " I was 
 pretty sure of it a while ago," she said. " And perhaps 
 I was, in a demoralized sort of a way. But I 've come 
 down, Mr. Wharne, — like the coon. I '11 tell you pres- 
 ently," she went on, — and she spoke now with warmth, 
 — " who is the real belle, — the beautiful one of this 
 place ! There she comes ! " 
 
 Miss Craydocke, in her nice, plain cambric morning- 
 V,x)wn, and her smooth front, was approaching down the 
 «de-passage across the wing. Just as she had come one 
 morning, weeks ago ; and it was the identical " fresh pet- 
 ticoat " of that morning she wore now. The sudden co- 
 incidence and recollection struck Sin Saxon as she spoke. 
 To her surprise, Miss Craydocke and Marmaduke Whama 
 
192 A SUJIMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 movea £[alckly toward each other, and grasped hand) 
 like old friends. 
 
 " Then you know all about it ! " Sin Saxon said, a few 
 minutes after, when she got her chance. " But you 
 dorCt know, sir," bhe added, with a desperate candor, 
 " the way I took to find it out I I 've been tormenting 
 her, Mr. Wharne, all summer. And I 'm heartilj 
 ashamed of it." 
 
 Marmaduke Wharne smiled. There was something 
 about this girl that suited his own vein. " I doubt she 
 was tormented," he said, quietly. 
 
 At that Sin Saxon smiled too, and looked up out of 
 her hearty shame which she had truly felt upon her at 
 her own reminder. "No, Mi. Wharne, she never was; 
 but that was n't my fault. After all, perhaps, — is n't 
 that what the optimists think? — it was best so. I 
 should never have found her thoroughly out in any 
 other way. It 's like " — and there she stopped short of 
 her comparison. 
 
 " Like what ? " asked Mr. Wharne, waiting. 
 
 " I can't tell you now, sir," she answered with a gleam 
 of her old fearless brightness. " It 's one end of a grand 
 idea, I believe, that I just touched on. I must think it 
 out, if I can, and see if it all holds together." 
 
 "And then I'm to have it?" 
 
 "It will take a monstrous deal of thinking, Mr. 
 Wharne." 
 
 " If I could only remember the chemicals I " said Sin 
 Saxon. She was down among the outcrops and frag 
 ments at the foot of MinsteT Rock. Close in around tha 
 
A SUMMKE IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE. 193 
 
 stones grew the short, mossy sward. In a safe hollow 
 between two of them, against a back formed by another 
 that rose higher with a smooth perpendicular, she had 
 chosen her fireplace, and there she had been making the 
 coffee. Quite intent upon the comfort of her friends 
 she was to-day; something really to do she had; "in 
 better business," as Leslie Goldthwaite phrased it to her- 
 self once, she found herself, than only to make herself 
 brilliant and enchanting after the manner of the day at 
 Feather-Cap. And let me assure you, if you have not 
 tried it, that to make the coffee and arrange the feast at 
 & picnic like this is something quite different from being 
 merely an ornamental. There is the fire to coax with 
 chips and twigs, and a good deal of smoke to swallow, 
 and one's dress to disregard. And all the rest are off in 
 scattered groups, not caring in the least to watch the pot 
 boil, but supposing, none the less, that it will. To be 
 siu-e, Frank Schermaii and Dakie Thayne brought her 
 firewood, and the water from the spring, and waited 
 loyally while she seemed to need them ; indeed, Frank 
 Scherman, much as he unquestionably was charmed with 
 her gay moods, stayed longest by her in her quiet ones ; 
 but she sent them off herself, at last, ti climb with Leslie 
 and the Josselyns again into the Minster, and see thence 
 he wonderful picture that the late sloping light made on 
 vhe far hills and fields that showed to their sight between 
 framing tree-branches and tail tnmk-shafts as they looked 
 from out the dimness of the rock. 
 
 She sat there alone, working out a thought; and at 
 last she spoke as I have said, — "If I 'ould only remom- 
 ber the chemicals ! " 
 
194 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE, 
 
 " My dear ! What do you mean ? The chemicals ? 
 For the coffee ? " It was Miss Craydocke who ques- 
 tioned, coming up with Mr. Wharne. 
 
 " Not the coifee, — no," said Sin Saxon, , laughing 
 rather absently, as too intent to be purely amused. 
 "But the — assaying. There, — I've remembered that 
 word, at least ! " 
 
 Miss Craydocke was more than ever bewildered. 
 "What is it, my dear? An experiment?" 
 
 " No ; an analogy. Something that 's been in my 
 head these three days. I can't make everything quite 
 clear, Mr. Wharne, but I know it's there. I went, I 
 must tell you, a little while ago, to see some Colorado 
 specimens — ores and things — that some friends of ours 
 had, who are interested in the mines ; and they talked 
 about the processes ; and somebody explained. There 
 were gold and silver and iron and copper and lead and 
 sulphur, that had all been boiled up together some time, 
 and cooled into rock. And the thing was to sort them 
 out. First, they crushed the whole mass into powder, 
 and then did something to it — applied heat 1 believe — 
 to drive away the sulphur. That fumed off, and left the 
 rest as promiscuous as before. Then they — oxidized the 
 lead, however they managed it, and got that out. You 
 see I 'm not quite sure of the order of things, or of the 
 chemical part. But they got it out, and something took 
 It. Then they put in quicksilver, and that took hold of 
 the gold. Then there were silver and copper and iron. 
 So they had to put back the lead again, and that grap- 
 pled the silver. And what they did with the copper ano 
 iron is just what I can't possibly recollect, but thoy d» 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 195 
 
 rided them somehow, and there was the great rock rid- 
 dle all read out. Now, have n't we been just like that 
 this summer ? And I wonder if the world is n't like it 
 somehow ? And ourselves, too, all muddled up, and not 
 knowing what we are made of, till the right chemicals 
 touch us ? There 's so much in it, Mr. Whame, I 
 can't put it in clear order. But it is there, — is n't it?" 
 
 " Yes, it is there," answered Mr. Whame, with the 
 briefest gravity. For Miss Craydocke, there were little 
 shining drops standing in her eyes, and she tried not to 
 wink lest they should fall out, pretending they had been 
 really tears. And what was there to cry about, you 
 know? 
 
 " Here we have been," Sin Saxon resumed, " all 
 crushed up together, and the characters coming out little 
 by little, with different things. Sulphur 's always the 
 first, — heats up and flies off, — it don't take ong to find 
 that ; and common oxygen gets at common lead ; and so 
 on ; but, dear Miss Craydocke, do you know what com- 
 forts me ? That you must have the quicksilver to dis- 
 cover the gold I " 
 
 Miss Craydocke winked. She had to do it then, and 
 the two little round drops fell. They went down, un- 
 seen, into the short pasture-grass, and I wonder what 
 little wild-flowers grew of their watering some day after- 
 ward. 
 
 It was getting a little too quiet between them now for 
 Deople on a picnic, perhaps ; and so in a minute Sin Sax- 
 «n said again : " It 's good to Know there is a way to sort 
 everything sut. Perhaps the tares and wheat mean the 
 same thing Mr. Whar.ue, woy is it that things seem 
 
190 A SUMMKE IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 more sure and true as soon as we find out we can maki 
 an allegory to them ? " 
 
 " Because we do not make the allegory. It is there as 
 you have said. ' I will open my mouth in parables. I 
 will utter things which have been kept secret from the 
 foundation of the world.' These things are that speech 
 of God that was in the beginning. The Word made 
 flesh, — it is he that interpreteth." 
 
 That was too great to give small answer to. Nobody 
 spoke again till Sin Saxon had to jump up to attend to her 
 coffee, that was boiling over, and then they took up their 
 little cares of the feast, and their chat over it. 
 
 Cakes and coffee, fruits and cream, — I do not care to 
 linger over these. I would rather take you to the cool, 
 shadowy, solemn Minster cavern, the deep, wondrous 
 recess in the face of solid rock, whose foundation and 
 whose roof are a mountain ; or above, upon the beetling 
 crag that makes but its porch-lintel, and looks forth itself 
 Bcross great air-spaces toward its kindred cliffs, lesser and 
 more mighty, all around, making one listen in one's heart 
 for the awful voices wherein they call to each other for- 
 evermore. 
 
 The party had scattered again, after the repast, and 
 Leslie and the Josselyns had gone back into the Minster 
 entrance, where they never tired of standing, and out of 
 whose gloom now they looked upon all the flood of splen- 
 dor, rosy, purple, and gold, which the royal sun flung 
 back — his last and richest largess — upon the heights 
 that looked longest after him. Mr. Wharne and Miss 
 Craydocke climbed the cliff. Sin Saxon, on her way up, 
 stopppd short among the broken crags below. There wai 
 
A S')MMEE IN LESLIE GOLDTHW AITE'S LIFE. 197 
 
 tomething very earnest in her gaze, as she lifted lier eyes, 
 wide and beautiful with the wonder in them, to the face 
 of granite upreared before her, and then turned slowly to 
 look across and up the valley, where other and yet grander 
 mountain ramparts thrust their great forbiddance on the 
 reaching vision. She sat down, where she was, upon s 
 rock. 
 
 " You are very tired ? " Frank Scherman said, inquir 
 
 ingly. 
 
 " See how they measure themselves against each other," 
 Sin Saxon said, for answer. " Look at them — Leslie and 
 the rest — inside the Minster that arches up so many times 
 iheir height above their heads, yet what a little bit — a 
 mere mouse-hole — it is out of the cliff itself; and then 
 look at the whole cliff against the Ledges, that, seen from 
 anywhere else, sejra to run so low along the river ; and 
 compare the Ledges with Feather-Cap, and Feather-Cap 
 with Giant's Cairn, and Giant's Cairn with Washington, 
 thirty miles away ! " 
 
 " It is grand surveying," said Frank Scherman. 
 
 " I think we see things from the little best," rejoined 
 Sin Saxon. "Washington is the big end of the tele- 
 scope." 
 
 "Now you have made me look at it," said Frank 
 tcherman, "I don't think I have bepn in any other 
 ;jpot that has given me such a real idea of the moun- 
 tains as this. One must have steps to climb by, even in 
 imagination. How impertinent we are, rushing at the 
 tremendousness of Washington in the way we do ; seal 
 ing it in little pleasure-wagons, and never taking in the 
 thought of it at all ! " 
 
198 A S0MMEE m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 
 
 Sometbing suddenly brought a flush to Sin Saxon's faoe^ 
 and ahnost a quiver to her lips. She was sitting with hei 
 hands clasped across her knees, and her head a little bent 
 with a downward look, after that long, wondering moun- 
 tain gaze, that had filled itself and then withdrawn for 
 thought. She lifted her face suddenly to her companio.i. 
 The impetuous look was in her eyes. " There 'a o"tli ■ 
 measuring too, Frank. What a fool I 've been ! " 
 
 Frank Scherman was silent. It was a little awkward 
 for him, scarcely comprehending what she meant. He 
 could by no means agree with Sin Saxon when she called 
 herself a fool ; yet he hardly knew what he was to con- 
 tradict. 
 
 " We 're well placed at this minute. Leslie Goldthwaite 
 and Dakie Thayne and the Josselyns half-way up above 
 there, in the Minster. Mr. Wharne and Miss Craydocke 
 at the top. And I down here, where I belong. Imperti- 
 nence ! To think of the things I 've said in my silliness 
 to that woman, whose greatness I can no more measure ! 
 Why did n't somebody stop me ? I don't answer for you, 
 Frank, and I won't keep you ; but I think I '11 just stay 
 where I am, and not spoil the significance ! " . 
 
 " I 'm content to rank beside you ; we can climb to- 
 gether," said Frank Scherman. " Even Miss Craydocke 
 ■las not got to the highest, you see," he went on, a little 
 hurriedly. 
 
 Sin Saxon broke in as hurriedly as he, with a deeper 
 9ush still upon her face. " There 's everything beyond. 
 That 's part of it. But she helps one to feel what th« 
 nigher — the Highest — must be. She's like the rock 
 •h" stands on. She 's one of the steps." 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 199 
 
 '• Come, Asenath , let 's go up." And he held out hia 
 liand to her till she took it and rose. They had known 
 each other from childhood, as I said ; bat Frank Scherman 
 hardh ever called hei by her name. "Miss Saxon" was 
 formal, and her school sobriquet he could not use. It 
 seemed to mean a great deal when he did say "Asenath." 
 
 And Sin Saxon took his hand and let him lead her up, 
 notwithstanding the " significance." 
 
 They are young, and I am not writing a love-story ; but 
 I think they will " climb together " ; and that the words 
 that wait to be said are mere words, — they have known 
 and understood each other so long. 
 
 " I feel like a camel at a fountain ; drinking in what ts 
 to last through the dry places," said Martha Josselyn, as 
 they came up. " Miss Saxon, you don't know what you 
 have given us to-day. I shall take home the hills in my 
 heart." 
 
 " We might have gone without seeing this," said Susan. 
 
 " No, you might n't," said Sin Saxon. " It 's my good 
 luck to see you see it, that 's all. It couldn't be in the 
 Older of things, you know, that you should be so near it, 
 and want it, and not have it, somehow." 
 
 " So much is in the order of things, though ! " said 
 Martha. " And there are so many things we want, with- 
 out knowing them even to he ! " 
 
 " That 's the beauty of it, I think," said Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite, turning back f"om wh ire she stood, bright in the 
 sunset glory, on the open rock. Her voice was like that 
 of some young prophet of joy, she was so full of the glad- 
 ness and loveliness of the time. " That 's the beauty of 
 
200 A STJMMEK IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 it, I think. There is such a worldful, and you neve! 
 know what you may be coming to next ! " 
 
 " Well, this is our last — of the mountains. We go on 
 Tuesday." 
 
 " It is n't your last of us, though, or of what we want 
 of you," rejoined Sin Saxon. " We must have the tab 
 leaux for Monday. We can't do without you in Robifi 
 Gray or Consolation. And about Tuesday, — it 's onlj 
 your own making up of minds. You have n't written, 
 have you ? They don't expect you ? When a week 's 
 broken in upon, like a dollar, the rest is of no account. 
 And there '11 be sure to be something doing, so many are 
 going the week after." 
 
 " We shall have letters to-night," said Susan. " But I 
 think we must go on Tuesday." 
 
 Everybody had letters that night. The mail was in 
 early, and Captain Green came up from the post-office as 
 the Minster party was alighting from the wagons. Ha 
 gave Dakie Thayne the bag. It was Dakie's delight to 
 distribute, calling out the fortunate names as the expect- 
 ant group pressed around him, like people waiting the 
 issue of a lottery-venture. 
 
 "Mrs. Linceford, Miss Goldthwaite, Mrs. Linceford, 
 Mrs. Zdnoe-(ord ! Master — hm ! Thayne," and he pock- 
 eted a big one like a despatch. " Captain Jotham Green. 
 Where is he ? Here, Captain Green ; you and I have 
 got the biggest, if Mrs. Linceford does get the most. I 
 believe she tells her friends to write in bits, and put one 
 letter into three or four envelopes. When I was a ver^ 
 little boy, I used to get a dollar changed into 9 hundred 
 ?oppers, and feel ever so much richer." 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 201 
 
 " TKat boy's forwardness is getting insufferable ! " ex- 
 rlaimed Mrs. Tlioresby, sitting apart, with two or three 
 others, who had not joined the group about Dakie Thayne. 
 "And why Captain Green should give him the bag always, 
 I can t understand. It is growing to be a positive nui- 
 sance." 
 
 Nobody out of the Thoresby clique thought it so. 
 They had a merry time together, — " you and I and the 
 post," as Dakie said. But then, between you and me 
 and that confidential personage, Mrs. Thoresby and her 
 'I'lughters had n't very many letters. 
 
 "That is all," said Dakie, shaking the bag. "They're 
 only for the very good, to-night." He was not saucy : he 
 was only brimming-over glad. He knew " Noll's " square 
 handwriting, and his big envelopes. 
 
 There was great news to-night at the Cottage. They 
 Jrere to have a hero — perhaps two or three — among 
 them. General Ingleside and friends were coming, early 
 in the week, the Captain told them with expansive face. 
 There are a great many generals and a great many he- 
 roes now. This man had been a hero beside Sheridan, 
 and under Sherman. Colonel Ingleside he was at Stone 
 River and Chattanooga, leading a brave Western regi- 
 ment in desperate, magnificent charges, whose daring 
 helped to turn that terrible point of the war and made his 
 fame. 
 
 But Leslie, though her heart stirred at the thought of 
 a real, great commander fresh from the field, had her own 
 news that half neutralized the excitiment of the other, 
 Cousin Delight was coming, to share her room with hei 
 {or the last fortnight. 
 
 8« 
 
202 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 
 
 The Josselyns got their letters. Aunt Lucy was star- 
 ing on. Aunt Lucy's husband had gone away to preach 
 for three Sundays for a parish where he had a prospect 
 of a call. Mrs. Josselyn could not leave home imme- 
 diately, therefore, although the girls should return ; and 
 their room was the airiest for Aunt Lucy. There was no 
 reason why they should not prolong their holiday if they 
 chose, and they might hardly ever get away to the moun- 
 tains again. More than all. Uncle David was off once 
 more for China and Japan, and had given his sister two 
 more fifties, — " for what did a sailor want of greenbacks 
 after he got afloat ? " It was a " clover summer " for the 
 Josselyns. Uncle David and his fifties would n't be back 
 among them for two years or more. They must mako 
 the most of it. 
 
 Sin Saxon sat up late, writing this letter to her 
 mother. 
 
 " Darling Mamma : — 
 
 " I 've just begun to find out really what to do here. 
 Cream does n't always rise to the top. You remember 
 the Josselyns, our quiet neighbors in town, that lived in 
 the little house in the old-fashioned block opposite, — Sue 
 Josselyn, Effie's schoolmate ? And how they used to tell 
 me stories, and keep me to nursery-tea ? Well, they 're 
 the cream, — they and Miss Craydocke. Sue has been in 
 ihe hospitals, — two years, mamma ! — while I 've been 
 jearning nocturnes, and going to Germans. And Martha 
 nas been at home, sewing her face sharp ; and they 're 
 here now to get rounded out. Well, now, mamma, ^ 
 want so — a real dish of mountains and cream, if you ere*; 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 203 
 
 aeard of such a thhig ! I want to take a wagon, and in- 
 vite a pai+y as I did my little one to Minster Rock, and 
 go through the hills, — be gone as many days as you will 
 ^nd me money for. And I want you to take the money 
 from that particular little corner of your purse where my 
 carpet and wall-paper and curtains, that werf to new- 
 furnish my room on my leaving school, are metaphorically 
 rolled up. There 's plenty there, you know ; for yoil 
 promised me my choice of everything, and I had fixed on 
 
 that lovely pearl-gray paper at 's, with the ivy and 
 
 holly pattern, and the ivy and scarlet-geranium carpet 
 that was such a match. I '11 have something cheaper, or 
 nothing at all, and thank you unutterably, if you '11 only 
 let me have my way in this. It will do me so much good, 
 mamma ! More than you 've the least idea of. People 
 can do without French paper and Brussels carpets, but 
 everybody has a right to mountain and sea and clou ' 
 glory, — only they don't half of them get it, and perhaps 
 that 's the other half's look-out ! 
 
 " I know you '11 understand me, mamma, particularly 
 when I talk sense ; for you always understood my non- 
 sense when nobody else did. And I 'm going to do youi 
 faith and discrimination credit yet. 
 
 " Your bad child, — with just a small, hidden savor ol 
 grace in her, hdng your child. 
 
 "ASENATH SaXOK." 
 
204 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE. 
 
 XII. 
 
 SATURDAY was a day of hammering, basting, drap 
 ing, dressing, rehearsing, running from room to room. 
 Uf stairs, in Mrs. Green's garret, Leshe Goldthwaite and 
 Daliie Thayne, with a third party never before introduced 
 upon the stage, had a private practising ; and at tea-time, 
 when the great hall was cleared, they got up there with 
 Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman, locked the doors, and in 
 costume, with regular accompaniment of bell and curtain, 
 the performance was repeated. 
 
 Dakie Thayne was stage-manager and curtain-puller; 
 Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman represented audience, 
 with clapping and stamping, and laughter that suspended 
 both, — making as nearly the noise of two hundred as two 
 could, — this being an essential part of the rehearsal in 
 respect to the untried nerves of the debutant, which might 
 easily be a little uncertain. 
 
 " He stands fire like a Yankee veteran." 
 
 " It 's inimitable," said Sin Saxon, wiping the moist 
 merriment from her eyes. " And your cap, Leslie ! And 
 that bonnet I And this unutterable old oddity of a gown I 
 Who did contrive it all ? and where did they come from ? 
 You '11 carry off the glory of the evening. It ought to be 
 the last." 
 
 " No, indeed," said Leslie. " Barbara Frietchie must 
 be last, of course. But I 'm so glad you think it will da 
 I hope they '11 be amused." 
 
 " Amused 1 If you could only see your oAvn face 1 " 
 
A SUMMER IN l.ESLfE GOLDTHWAITE'S tJFK 'iOS 
 
 " I see Sir Charles's, and that makes mine." 
 
 The new performer, you perceive, was an actor with a 
 title. 
 
 That night's coach, driving up while the dress-rehearsal 
 of the other tableaux was going on at the hall, brought 
 Cousin Delight to the Green Cottage, and Leslie met her 
 at the door. 
 
 Sunday morning was a pause and rest and hush oi 
 beauty and joy. They sat — Delight and Leslie — by 
 their open window, where the smell of the lately har- 
 vested hay f'ame over from the wide, sunshiny entrance of 
 the great barn, and away beyond stretched the pine woods, 
 and the hills swelled near in dusky evergreen, and indigo 
 shadows, and lessened far down toward Winnipiseogee, to 
 where, faint and tender and blue, the outline of little Os- 
 sipee peeped in between great shoulders so modestly, — 
 seen only through the clearest air en days like this. Les- 
 lie's little table, with fresh white cover, held a vase of ferns 
 and white convolvulus, and beside this Cousin Delight's 
 two books that came out always from the top of her 
 trunk, — her Bible and her little "Daily Food." To- 
 day the verses from Old and New Testaments were these : 
 — " The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, 
 and he delighteth in his way." " Walk circumspectly, 
 not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time." 
 
 They had a talk about the first, — " The steps," — the 
 little details, — not merely the general trend and final is- 
 sue ; if, indeed, these coula be directed without the other. 
 
 "You always make me see things. Cousin Delight," 
 Leslie said. 
 
 " It is very plain," Delight answered ; " if Deoola 
 
206 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIJTi. 
 
 only would read the Bible as they read even a careless 
 letter from a friend, counting each word of value, and 
 searching for more meaning and fresh inference te draw 
 out the most. One word often answers great doubts and 
 asKings that have troubled the world." 
 
 Afterward, they walked round by a still wood-path un- 
 der the Ledge to the North Village, where there was a 
 service. It was a plain little church, with unpainted 
 pewt, ; but the windows looked forth upon a green moun- 
 tain side, and whispers of oaks and pines and river-music 
 crept in, and the breath of sweet water-lilies, heaped in a 
 great bowl upon the communion-table of common stained 
 cherry-wood, floated up and filled the place. The minis- 
 ter, a quiet, gray-haired man, stayed his foot an instant at 
 that simple altar, before he went up the few steps to the 
 desk. He had a sermon in his pocket from the text, 
 " The hairs of your heads are all numbered." He 
 changed it at the moment in his mind, and, when pres- 
 ently he rose to preach, gave forth, in a tone touched, 
 through the fresh presence of that reminding beauty, 
 with the very spontaneousness of the Master's own say- 
 ing, — " Consider the lilies." And then he told them of 
 God's momently thought and care. 
 
 There were scattered strangers, from various houses, 
 among the simple rural congregation. Walking home 
 through the pines again. Delight and Leslie and Dakie 
 Thayne found themselves preceded and followed along 
 the narrow way. Sin Saxon and Frank Scherman came 
 np and joined them when the wider openings permitted. 
 
 Two persons just in front were commenting upon th« 
 tennon. 
 
A SUMMKB DJ LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 207 
 
 " Very fair for a country parson," "said a tall, elegant- 
 fooking man, whose broad, intellectual brow was touched 
 by dark hair slightly frosted, and whose lip had the curve 
 that betokens self-reliance and strong decision, — "very 
 fair. All the better for not flying ton high. Narrow, of 
 course. He seems to think the almighty has nothing 
 grander to do than to finger every little cog of the tre- 
 mendous machinery of the universe, — that he meas- 
 ares out the ocean of his purposes as we drop a liquid 
 from a phial. To me it seems belittling the Infinite." 
 
 " I don't know whether it is littleness or greatness, 
 Robert, that must escape minutiae," said his companion, 
 apparently his wife. " If we could reach to the particles, 
 perhaps we might move the mountains." 
 
 " We never agree upon this, Margie. We won't be ■ 
 gin again. To my mind, the grand plan of things was 
 settled ages ago, — the impulses generated that must needs 
 work on. Foreknowledge and intention, doubtless: in 
 that sense the hairs were numbered. But that there is a 
 special direction and interference to-day for you and me 
 — well, we won't argue, as I said; but I never can con- 
 ceive it so ; and I think a wider look at the world brings 
 a question to all such primitive faith." 
 
 The speakers turned down a side-way with this, leaving 
 the ledge path and their subject to our friends. Only to 
 their thoughts at first ; but presently Cousin Delight said, 
 in a quiet tone, to Leslie, " That does n't account for the 
 steps, does it ? " 
 
 " I am glad it can't" said Leslie. 
 
 Dakie Thayne turned a look toward LpsUe, as if ha 
 would gladly know of what she spoke, ~ a look in which 
 
208 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 a, kind of gentle reverence was strangely mingled witli 
 the open friendliness. I cannot easily indicate to you the 
 sort of feeling with which the boy had come to regard 
 this young girl, just above him in years and thought and 
 in the attitude which true womanhood, young or old, 
 takes toward man. He had no sisters ; he had been in- 
 timately associated with no girl-companions ; he had lived 
 with his brother and an uncle and a young aunt, Rose. 
 Leslie Goldthwaite's kindness had drawn him into the 
 sphere of a new and powerful influence, — something dif- 
 ferent in thought and purpose from the apparent un- 
 thought about her ; and this lifted her up in his regard 
 and enshrined her with a sort of pure sanctity. He was 
 sometimes really timid before her, in the midst of his 
 frank chivalry. 
 
 " I wish you 'd tell me," he said suddenly, falling back 
 with her as the path narrowed again. " What are the 
 ' steps ' ? " 
 
 " It was a verse we found this morning, — Cousin De- 
 light and I," Leslie answered ; and as she spoke the coloi 
 came up full in her cheeks, and her voice was a little shy 
 and tremulous. " ' The steps of a good man are ordered 
 by Ihe Lord.' That one word seemed to make one cer- 
 tain. (_^' Steps,' A— not path, nor the end of it ; but all the 
 way." Somehow she was quite out of breath as she 
 finished. 
 
 Meantime Sin Saxon and Frank had got with Miss 
 Goldthwaite, and were talking too. 
 (~" Set spinning," they heard Sin Saxon say, " and then 
 let go. That was his idea. Well ! Only it seems to me 
 there 's been especial pains taken to show us it can't l)e 
 
A StJMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 209 
 
 doue. Or e*se, why don't they find out perpetual mo- 
 tion? Everything stops after a while, unless — I can't 
 talk theologically, but I mean all right — you hit it 
 again." ^ 
 
 " You 've a way of your own of putting things, Ase- 
 nath," said Frank Scherman, — with a glance that beamed 
 kindly and admiringly upon her and " her way," — " but 
 you 've put that clear to me as nobody else ever did. A 
 proof set in the very laws themselves, — momentum that 
 must lessen and lose itself with the square of the distance. 
 The machinery cavil won't do." 
 
 " Wheels ; but a living spirit within the wheels," said 
 Cousin Delight. 
 
 " Every instant a fresh impulse ; to think of it so 
 makes it real, Miss Goldthwaite, — and grand and aw- 
 ful." The young man spoke with a strength in the clear 
 voice that could be so light and gay. 
 
 " And tender, too. ' Thou layest Thine hand upon 
 me,' " said Delight Goldthwaite. 
 
 Sin Saxon was quiet ; her own thought coming back 
 upon her with a reflective force, and a thrill at her 
 heart at Frank Scherman's words. Had these two only 
 planned tableaux and danced Germans together before ? 
 
 Dakie Thayne walked on by Leslie Goldthwaite's side, 
 in his happy content touched with something higher and 
 brighter through that instant's approach and confidence. 
 If I were to write down his thought as he walked, it 
 would be with phrase and distinction peculiar to himself 
 and to the boy-mind, — <i' It 's the real thing with her ; it 
 ion't make a fellow squirm like a pin put out at a caterpil- 
 lar She 'sgood; but she is t)\ pious !"j 
 
210 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 This was the Sunday that lay between the busy Satui 
 day and Monday. "It is always so wherever Cousin 
 Dehght is," Leslie Goldthwaite said to herself, comparing 
 it with other Sundays that had gone. Yet she too, for 
 «veeks before, by the truth that had come into her own 
 fife and gone out from it, had been helping to make these 
 moments possible. She had been shone upon, and had 
 put forth ; henceforth she should scarcely know when the 
 fruit was ripening or sowing itself anew, or the good and 
 gladness of it were at human lips. 
 
 She was in Mrs. Linceford's room on Monday morning, 
 putting high velvet-covered corks to the heels of her 
 slippers, when Sin Saxon came over hurriedly, and tapped 
 at the door. 
 
 " Could you be two old women ? " she asked, the in- 
 stant Leslie opened. " Ginevra Thoresby has given out. 
 She says it 's her cold, — that she does n't feel equal to 
 't ; but the amount of it is, she got her chill with the 
 Shannons going away so suddenly, and the Amy Robsart 
 and Queen Elizabeth picture being dropped. There 
 was nothing else to put her in, and so she won't be Bar- 
 bara." 
 
 " Won't be Barbara Frietchie ! " cried Leslie, with an 
 astonishment as if it had been angelhood refused. 
 
 " No. Barbara Frietchie is only an old woman in a 
 cap and kerchief, and she just puts her head out of a 
 window : the flag is the whole of it, Ginevra Thoresby 
 
 " May I do it ? Do you think I can be differen. 
 enough in the two ? Will there be time ? " Leslie que* 
 tioned eagerly. 
 
A SUMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITt S UFE. 211 
 
 '■ We '11 change the programme, and put ' Taking the 
 Oath ' between. The caps can be different, and you can 
 powder your hair for one, and — would it do to ask Miss 
 Craydocke for a front for the other ? " Sin Saxon had 
 grown delicate in her feeling for the dear old friend whose 
 hair had onoe been golden. 
 
 " I '11 tell her about it, and ask her to help me con- 
 trive. She '11 be sure to think of anything that can be 
 thought of." 
 
 " Only there 's the dance afterward, and you had so 
 much more costume for the other," Sin Saxon said, 
 demurringly. 
 
 " Never mind. I shall he Barbara ; and Barbara 
 would n't dance, I suppose." 
 
 " Mother Hubbard would, marvellously." 
 
 " Never mind," Leslie answered again, laying down 
 the little slipper, finished. 
 
 " She don't care what she is, so that she helps along," 
 Sin Saxon said uf her, rejoining the others in the hall. 
 " I 'm ashamed of myself and all the rest of you, beside 
 her. Now make yourselves as fine as you please." 
 
 We must pass over the hours as only stories and dreams 
 do, and put ourselves, at ten of the clock that night, be- 
 hind the green curtain and the foothghts, in the blaze of 
 the three rows of bright lamps, that, one above another, 
 poured their illumination from the left upon the stage, be- 
 hind the vride picture-fi-ame. 
 
 Susan Josselyn and Frank Scherman were just " posed " 
 for " Consolation." They had given Susan this part, 
 Kfter all, because they wanted Martha for " Taking the 
 Oath," afterward Leshe Goldthwaite was giving a hasty 
 
212 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 touclrto the tent drapery and the gray blanket ; Leonard 
 Brookhouse and Dakie Thayne manned the halyards for 
 raising the curtain ; there was the usual scuttling about 
 the stage for hasty clearance ; and Sin Saxon's hand was 
 on the bell, when Grahame Lowe sprang hastily in 
 through the dressing-room upon the scene. 
 
 " Hold on a minute," he said to Brookhouse. " Miss 
 Saxon, General Ingleside and party are over at Green's, 
 — been there since nine o'clock. Oughtn't we to send 
 compliments or something, before we finish up ? " 
 
 Then there was a pressing forward and an excitement. 
 The wounded soldier sprang from his couch ; the nun 
 came nearer, with a quick light in her eye ; Leslie Gold- 
 thwaite, in her mob cap, quilted petticoat, big-flowered 
 calico train, and high-heeled shoes ; two or three super- 
 numeraries, in Rebel gray, with bayonets, coming on in 
 " Barbara Frietchie " ; and Sir Charles, bouncing out from 
 somewhere behind, to the great hazard of the frame of 
 lights, — huddled together upon the stage and consulted. 
 Dakie Thayne had dropped his cord and almost made a 
 rush off at the first announcement ; but he stood now, 
 with a repressed eagerness that trembled through every 
 fibre, and waited. 
 
 " Would he come ? " " Is n't it too late ? " " Would 
 it be any compliment?" "Won't it be rude not to?" 
 " All the patriotic pieces are just coming ! " " Will the 
 audience like to wait?" "Make a speech and tell 'em. 
 You, Brookhouse." " O, he mwsi come! Barbara Friet- 
 chie and the flag! Just think!" "Isn't it grand?" 
 " 0, I 'm so frightened ! " These were the hurried sen- 
 tences that n^ade the buzz behind the scenes ; while in 
 
A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 5213 
 
 front " ill the world wondered." Meanwhile, lamps trem- 
 bled, the curtain vibrated, the very framework swayed. 
 
 "What is it? Fire?" queried a nervous voice from 
 near the footlights 
 
 " This won't do," said Frank Scherman. " Speak to 
 them, Brookhouse. Dakie Thayne, run over to Green's, 
 and say, — The ladies' compliments to General Ingleside 
 and friends, and beg the honor of their presence at the 
 concluding tableaux." 
 
 Dakie was off with a glowing face. Something like an 
 odd, knowing smile twinkling out from the glow also, aa 
 he looked up at Scherman and took his orders. All this 
 while he had said nothing. 
 
 Leonard Brookhouse made his little speech, received 
 with applause and a cheer. Then they quieted down 
 behind the scenes, and a rustle and buzz began in front, — 
 kept up for five minutes or so, in gentle fashion, till two 
 gentlemen, in plain clothes, walked quietly in at the open 
 door ; at sight of whom, with instinctive certainty, the 
 whole assembly rose. Leslie Goldthwaite, peeping through 
 the folds of the curtain, saw a tall, grand-looking r\an, in 
 what may be called the youth of middle age, every inch a 
 soldier, bowing as he was ushered forward to a seat va- 
 cated for him, and followed by one younger, who mod- 
 estly ignored the notice intended for his chief. Dakie 
 Thayne was making his way, with eyes alight and ex- 
 cited, down a side passage to his post. 
 
 Then tne two actors hurried once more into position ; 
 the stage was cleared by a whispered peremptory order ; 
 the bell rung once, the tent trembling with some one 
 whisking ftirther out of sight oehind it, — twice, and the 
 lurtain rose upon " Consolation." 
 
214 A SUMMER m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 Lovely as the picture is, it was lovelier in the living tab- 
 leau. There was something deep and intense in the 
 pale talm of Susan Josselyn's face, which they had not 
 counted on even when they discovered that hers was the 
 very face for the " Sister." Something made you thrill 
 at the thought of what those eyes would show, if the down- 
 cast, quiet lids were raised. The earnest gaze of the dy- 
 ing soldier met more, perhaps, in its uplifting ; for Frank 
 Scherman had a look, in this .instant of enacting, that he 
 had never got before in all his practisings. The picture 
 was too real for applause, — almost, it suddenly seemed, 
 for representation. 
 
 " Don't I know that face, Noll ? " General Ingleside 
 asked, in a low tone, of his companion. 
 
 Instead of answering at once, the younger man bent 
 further forward toward the stage, and his own very plain, 
 broad, honest face, full over against the downcast one of 
 the Sister of Mercy, took upon itself that force of magnetic 
 expression which makes a look felt even across a crowd 
 of other glances, as if there were but one straight line of 
 vision, and that between such two. The curtain was go 
 ing slowly down ; the veiling hds trembled, and the pale- 
 ness replaced itself with a slow-mounting flush of color 
 over the features, still held motionless. They let the 
 cords run more quickly then. She was getting tired, 
 they said ; the curtain had been up too long. Be that aa 
 It might, nothing could persuade Susan Josselyn to sit 
 Bgain, and " Consolation " could not be repeated. 
 
 So then came " Mother Hubbard and her dog," — the 
 ».ow old lady and the knowing beast that was always get- 
 ting one step ahead of her. The possibility had occurreo 
 
A SUMiIEK m LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 216 
 
 lo Leslie Goldthwaite as she and Dakie Thayne amused 
 tbemselves one day with Captain Green's sagacious Sir 
 Charles Grandison, a handsome black spaniel, whose 
 trained accomplishment was to hold himself patiently in 
 any posture in which he might be placed, until the word 
 of release was given. You might stand him on his hind 
 legs, with paws folded on his breast ; you might extend 
 him on his back, with helpless legs in air ; you might put 
 him in any attitude possible to be maintained, and main- 
 tain it he would, faithfully, until the signal was made. 
 From this prompting came the Illustration of Mother 
 Hubbard. Also, Leslie Goldthwaite had seized the hid- 
 den suggestion of application, and hinted it in certain 
 touches of costume and order of performance. Nobody 
 would think, perhaps, at first, that the striped scarlet and 
 white petticoat under the tucked-up train, or the common 
 print apron of dark blue, figured with innumerable little 
 white stars, meant anything beyond the ordinary adjuncts 
 of a traditional old woman's dress ; but when, in the 
 second scene, the bonnet went on, — an ancient marvel 
 of exasperated front and crown, pitched over the fore- 
 head like an enormous helmet, and decorated, upon the 
 side next the audience, with black and white eagle 
 plumes springing straight up from the fastening of aB 
 American shield, — above all, when the dog himself ap- 
 peared, " dressed in his clothes " (a cane, an all-round 
 white collar and a natty little tie, a pair of three-dollar 
 tasselled kid-gloves dangling from his left paw, and a 
 small monitor hat with a big spread-eagle stuck above the 
 brim, — the remaining details of costume being of no con- 
 lequence), — when he stood " reading the news " from a 
 
216 A STMMEB ni LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 nuge bulletin, — « LATEST BY CABLE tROM 
 EUROPE," — nobody could mistake the personification 
 of Old and Young America. 
 
 It had cost much pains and many dainty morsels, to 
 drill Sir Charles, with all the aid of his excellent funda- 
 mental education ; and the great fear had been that he 
 might fail them at the last. But the scenes were rapid, 
 in consideration of canine infirmity. If the cupboard was 
 empty. Mother Hubbard's basket behind was not ; he got 
 his morsels duly ; and the audience was ^' requested to 
 refrain fi"om applause until the end." Refrain from 
 laughter they could not, as the idea dawned upon them 
 and developed ; but Sir Charles was used to that in the 
 execution of his ordinary tricks ; he could hardly have 
 done without it better than any other old actor. A dog 
 knows when he is having his day, to say nothing of doing 
 his duty ; and these things are as sustaining to him as to 
 anybody. This state of his mind, manifest in his air, 
 helped also to complete the Young America expression. 
 Mother Hubbard's mingled consternation and pride at 
 each successive achievement of her astonishing puppy 
 were inimitable. Each separate illustration made ita 
 point. Patriotism, especially, came in when the under- 
 taker, bearing the pall with red-lettered border, — Rebel- 
 lion, — finds the dog, with upturned, knowing eye, and 
 parted jaws, suggestive as much of a good grip as of 
 Viughter, half risen upon fore-paws, as far from " dead ' 
 as ever, mounting guard over the old bone " Constitu 
 tion." 
 
 The curtain fell at last, amid peals of applause an« 
 lalls for the actors. 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S XTFE. 217 
 
 Dakie Thayne had accompanied with the reading of 
 the ballad, slightly transposed and adapted. As Leslie 
 led Sir Charles before the curtain, in response to the con- 
 tinued demand, he added the concluding stanza, — > 
 
 " The dame made a courtesy, 
 The dog made a bow ; 
 The dame said, ' Tour servant,' 
 The dog said, ' Bow-wow.' " 
 
 Wliich, with a suppressed " Speak, sir I " from Frank 
 Scherman, was brought properly to pass. Done with 
 cleverness and quickness from beginning to end, and tak- 
 ing the audience utterly by surprise, Leslie's little com- 
 bination of wit and sagacity had been throughout a signal 
 success. The actors crowded round her. " We 'd no 
 idea of it I " " Capital ! " "A great hit ! " they ex- 
 claimed. " Mother Hubbard is the star of the evening," 
 said Leonard Brookhouse. " No, indeed," returned Les- 
 lie, patting Sir Charles's head, — " this is the dog-star." 
 " Rather a Sirius reflection upon the rest of us," rejoined 
 Prookhouse, shrugging his shoulders, as he walked off to 
 ,ake his place in the " Oath," and Leslie disappeared to 
 make ready for " Barbara Frietchie." 
 
 Several persons, before and behind the curtain, were 
 making up their minds, just now, to a fresh opinion. 
 There was nothing so very slow or tame, after all, about 
 Leslie Goldthwaite. Several others had known that long 
 
 »go- 
 
 " Taking the Oath " was piquant and spirited. The 
 touch of restive scorn that could come out on Martha 
 Togselyn's face just suited her p'tt ; and Leonard Br"'* 
 
 10 
 
jaS A SUMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UFR 
 
 house was very cool and courteous, and handsome and 
 gentlemanly-triumphant as the Union officer. 
 
 " Barbara Frietchie " was grand. Grahame Lowe 
 played Stonewall Jackson. They had improvised a 
 pretty bit of scenery at the back, with a few sticks, some 
 paint, brown carpet-paper, and a couple of mosquito-bars ; 
 — a Dutch gable with a lattice window, vines trained up 
 over it, and bushes below. It was a moving tableau, 
 enacted to the reading of Whittier's glorious ballad. 
 " Only an old woman in a cap and kerchief, putting her 
 head out at a garret window," — that was all ; but the fire 
 was in the young eyes under the painted wrinkles and the 
 snowy hair ; the arm stretched itself out quick and bravely 
 at the very instant of the pistol-shot that startled timid 
 ears ; one skilful movement detached and seized the staff 
 in its apparent fall, and the liberty-colors flashed full in 
 Sebel faces, as the broken lower fragment went clattering 
 to the stage. All depended on the one instant action and 
 expression. These were perfect. The very spirit of 
 Barbara stirred her representative. The curtain began to 
 descend slowly, and the applause broke forth before the 
 reading ended. But a hand, held up, hushed it till the 
 concluding lines were given in thrilling tones, as the tab- 
 leau was covered from sight. 
 
 " Barbara FrietcMe's work is o'er, 
 And the Rebel rides on Ms raids no more. 
 
 " Honor to her ! and let a tear 
 Fall, for her sake, on Stonewall's biet 
 
 " Over Barbara Frietchie's graTe, 
 Flag of Freedom and Union, wssre I 
 
A 3DMMEE QI LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S UPE. 219 
 
 " Peace and order and beauty draw 
 Bonnd thy symbol of light and law ; 
 
 " And ever the stars abore look down 
 On thy stars below in Frederick town 1 " 
 
 Then one great cheer broke forth, and was prolonged to 
 three. 
 
 " Not be Barbara Frietchie 1 " Leslie would not have 
 missed that thrill for the finest beauty-part of all. For 
 the applause — that was for the flag, of course, as Ginevra 
 Thoresby said. 
 
 The benches were sUd out at a window upon a lower 
 roof, the curtain was looped up, and the footlights carried 
 away ; the " music " came up, and took possession of the 
 stage ; and the audience hall resolved itself into a ball- 
 room. Under the chandelier, in the middle, a tableau 
 not set forth in the programme was rehearsed and added 
 a few minutes after. 
 
 Mrs. Thoresby, of course, had been introduced to tha 
 General ; Mrs. Thoresby, with her bright, full, gray curia 
 »nd her handsome figure, stood holding him in conversa- 
 tion between introductions, graciously waiving her privi- 
 l^e as new-comers claimed their modest word. Mrs. 
 Thoresby took possession ; had praised the tableaux, aa 
 " quite creditable, really, considering the resources we 
 had," and was following a slight lead into a long talk, of 
 information and advice on her part, about Dixville Notch 
 The General thought he should go there, after a day oi 
 two at Outledge. 
 
 Just here came up Dakie Thayne. The actors, in 
 costume, were gradually mingling among the audience, 
 
220 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 and Barbara Frietchie, in white hair, from which there 
 was not time to remove the powder, plain can and ker- 
 chief, and brown woollen gown, with her silken flag yet 
 in her hand, came with him. This boy, who "was always 
 everywhere," made no hesitation, but walked straight up 
 to the central group, taking Leslie by the hand. Close 
 to the General, he waited courteously for a long sentence 
 of Mrs. Thoresby's to be ended, and then said, simply, — 
 " Uncle James, this is my friend Miss Leslie Goldthwaite. 
 My brother. Dr. Ingleside — why, where is Noll ? " 
 
 Dr. Oliver Ingleside had stepped out of the circle in 
 the last half of the long sentence. The Sister of Mercy 
 
 no longer in costume, however — had come down the 
 little flight of steps that led from the stage to the floor. 
 At their foot the young army surgeon was shaking hands 
 with Susan Josselyn. These two had had the chess-prac- 
 tice together — -^nd jother practice — down there among 
 the Southern hospitals. 
 
 Mrs. Thoresby's face was very like some fabric sub- 
 jected to chemical experiment, from which one color and 
 aspect has been suddenly and utterly discharged to, make 
 room for something different and new. Between the 
 first and last there waits a blank. With this blank full 
 upon her, she stood there for one brief, unprecedented 
 instant in her life, a figure without presence or effect. I 
 have seen a daguerreotype in which were cap, hair, and 
 collar, quite correct, — what should have been a face 
 rubbed out. Mrs. Thoresby rubbed herself out, and s« 
 performed her involuntary tableau. 
 
 " Of course I might have guessed. I wonder it nevej 
 orxurred to me," Mrs. Linceford wa? replying, presently 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 221 
 
 to her vacuous inquiry. " The name seemed familiar, 
 coo ; only he called himself ' Dakie.' I remember per- 
 fectly now. Old Jacob Thayne, the Chicago millionnaire. 
 He married pretty little Mrs. Ingleside. the Illinois Rep- 
 resentative's widow, that first winter I was in Washing- 
 ton. Why, Dakie must be a dollar prince ! ' 
 
 He was just Dakie Thayne, though, for all that. He 
 and Leslie and Cousin Delight, — the Josselyns and the 
 Inglesides, — dear Miss Craydocke, hurrying up to con- 
 gratulate, — Marmaduke Wharne looking on without a 
 shade of cynicism in the gladness of his face, and Sin 
 Saxon and Frank Scherman flitting up in the pauses of 
 dance and promenade, — well, after all, these were the 
 central group that night. The pivot of the little solar sys- 
 tem was changed ; but the chief planets made but slight 
 account of that ; they just felt that it had grown very 
 warm and bright. 
 
 " Chicken Little ! " Mrs. Linceford cried to Leslie 
 joldthwaite, giving her a small shake with her good-night 
 Kiss at her door. " How did you know the sky was going 
 to fall ? And how have you led us all this chase to cheat 
 Fox Lox at last ? " 
 
 But that was n't the way Chicken Little looked at it 
 She did n't care much for the bit of dramatic denouement 
 that had come about by accident, — like a story, Elinor 
 gaid, — or the touch of poetic justice that tickled Mrs. 
 Linceford's world-instructed sense of fun. Dakie Thayne 
 was n't a sura that needed proving. It was very nice 
 that this famous general should be his uncle, — but not at 
 nil strange : they were just the sort of people he must 
 belong to. A.nd il was nicest of all that Dr. Ingleside 
 
222 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE 
 
 and Susan Josselyn should have known each other,— 
 " in the glory of their lives," she phrased it to herself, 
 with a little flash of girl-enthusiasm and a vague sugges- 
 tion of romance. 
 
 " Why did n't you tell us ? " Mrs. Linceford said to Da- 
 kie Thayne next morning. " Everybody would have — " 
 She stopped. She could not tell this boy to his frank 
 face that everybody would have thought more and made 
 more of him because his uncle had got brave stars on 
 his shoulders, and his father had died leaving two mil- 
 lions or so of dollars. 
 
 "I know they would have," said Dakie Thayne, 
 " That was just it. What is the use of telling things ? 
 I '11 wait till I 've done something that tells itself." 
 
 There was a pretty general break-up at Outledge dur- 
 ing the week following. The tableaux were the finale of 
 the season's gayety, — of this particular little episode, at 
 least, which grew out of the association together of these 
 personages of our story. There might come a later set, 
 and later doings ; but this last week of August sent the 
 mere summer-birds fluttering. Madam Routh must be 
 back in New York, to prepare for the reopening of her 
 school ; Mrs. Linceford had letters from her husband, pro- 
 posing to meet her by the first, in N , and so the 
 
 Haddens would be off; the Thoresbys had stayed as long 
 as they cared to in any one place where there seemed no 
 special inducement ; General Ingleside was going through 
 the mountains to Dixville Notch. Rose Ingleside, — 
 bright and charming as her name, — just a fit flower to 
 put beside our Ladies' Delight, — finding out, at once, 
 IS all girls and women did, her sweetness, and leaning 
 
A SUMHEB m LESLS& GOLDTHWAITE'S UFE i'2'i 
 
 wore and more to the rare and delicate sphere of her 
 qniet attraction, — Oliver and Dakie Thayne, — these 
 were his family party ; but there came to be question 
 about LesUe and Delight. Would not they make six ? 
 And since Mrs. Linceford and her sisters must go, it 
 seemed so exactly the thing for them to fall into ; other- 
 wise Miss Goldthwaite's journey hither would hardly 
 eeem to have been worth while. Early September was 
 80 lovely among the hills ; opportunities for a party to 
 Dixville Notch would not come every day ; in short, 
 Dakie had set his heart upon it, Rose begged, the Gen- 
 eral was as pressing as true politeness would allow, and it 
 was settled. 
 
 " Only," Sin Saxon said, suddenly, on being told, " I 
 should like if you would tell me, General Ingleside, the 
 precise military expression synonymous with ' taking the 
 wind out of one's sails.' Because that 's just what you 've 
 done for me." 
 
 " My dear Miss Saxon I In what way ? " 
 " Invited my party, — some of them, — and taken my 
 1 tad. That 's all. I spoke first, though I did n't speak 
 out loud. See here I " And she produced a letter from 
 her mother, received that morning. " Observe the date, 
 if you please, — August 24. ' Your letter reached me 
 yesterday.' And it had travelled round, as usual, two 
 days in papa's pocket, beside. I always allow for that 
 ' i quite approve your plan ; provided, as you say, the 
 prty be properly matronized. I ' — h'm — h'm ! — That 
 refers to little explanations of my own. Well, all is, I 
 »Fas going to do this very thing, — with enlargements. 
 And now Miss Craydocke and I may collapse." 
 
324 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LITE. 
 
 "Why? when with you arid your enlargements we 
 might" make' the most admirable combination ? At least, 
 the' Dixville road is open to all." 
 
 "^Very'kihd of you to say so, — the first part, I mean, 
 
 — if 'you' 'could possibly have helped it. But there are 
 insurmountable db'sf&cles on that Dixville road — to us. 
 There's' d'lib'n iii'the way. Don't you see we should be 
 like theliftle'ragged' boys running after the soldier-com- 
 pany ?' We could n't think of putting ourselves in that 
 ' bony light,' especially before the eyes of Mrs. — Grun- 
 dy'." ' This last, as Mrs. Thbtesby swept impressively 
 along the piazza in full' dinner costume. 
 
 " Unless you go first, and we run after you," suggested 
 the General. 
 
 " All the ' same. You talked Dixville to her the very 
 first evening; you know. No, nobody can have an origi- 
 nal Dixville idea any more. And I 've been asking them, 
 
 — the Josselyns, and Mr. Whame and all, and was just 
 coming to the Goldthwaites ; and now I 've got them on 
 my hands, and I don't know where in the world to take 
 them. That comes of keeping an inspiration to ripen. 
 Well, it 's a lesson of wisdom ! Only, as Efiie says about 
 her housekeeping, the two dearest things in living are 
 butter and experience ! " 
 
 Amidst laughter and banter and repartee, they came to 
 It, of course ; the most delightful combination and joint 
 arrangement. Two wagons, the General's and Dr. In- 
 gleside's two saddle-horses, Frank Scherman's little moun^ 
 tain mare, that climbed like a cat, and was sure-footed as 
 a chamois, — these with a side-saddle for the use of » 
 lady sometimes upon the last, made up the geneial equip 
 
A SUMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 225 
 
 naent of th^ expedition. All Mrs. Grundy knew waj 
 that they were wonderfully merry and excited together, 
 antU this plan came out as the upshot. 
 
 The Josselyns had not quite consented at once, thougl 
 their faces were bright with a most thankful appreciatioB 
 of the kindness that offered them such a pleasure ; nay, 
 that entreated their companionship as a thing so genuinely 
 coveted to make its own pleasure complete. Somehow, 
 when the whole plan developed, there was a little sudden 
 shrinking on Sue's part, perhaps on similar grounds to 
 Sin Saxon's perception of insurnioun table obstacles,; but 
 she was shyer than Sin of putting forth her objections, 
 and the general zeal and delight, and Martha's longing 
 look, unconscious of cause why not, carried the day. 
 
 There had never been a blither setting off from the 
 Giant's Cairn. All the remaining guests were gathered 
 to see them go. There was not a mote in the blue air 
 between Outledge and the crest of Washington. All the 
 subtile strength of the hills — ores and sweet waters and 
 •resinous perfumes and breath of healing leaf and root dis- 
 tilled to absolute purity in the clear ether that only sweeps 
 from such bare, thunder-scoured summits — made up the 
 .exhilarant draught in which they drank the mountain-joy 
 and received afar off its baptisnx of delight. 
 
 It was beautiful to see the Josselyns so girlish and gay ; 
 it was lovely to look at old Miss Craydocke, with her lit- 
 tle tremors of pleasure, and the sudden glistenings in her 
 eyes ; Sin Saxon's pretty, face was clear and noble, with 
 its pure impulse. of kindliness, and her fun was like a 
 sparkle, upon deep waters. Dakie Thayne rushed about 
 in a sort of general satisfaction which would not let him 
 
 10* o 
 
226 A SDMMEB TN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 
 
 be quiet anywhere. OMsiders looked with a kind of new, 
 half-jealous respect on these privileged few who had so 
 suddenly become the " General's party." Sin Saxon 
 whispered to Leslie Goldthwaite, — " It 's neither his 
 nor mine, honeysuckle ; it 's yours, — Henny-penny 
 and all the rest of it, as Mrs. Linceford said." Leslie 
 was glad M-ith the crowning gladness- of her bright 
 summer. 
 
 " That girl has played her cards well," Mrs. Thoresby 
 said of her, a little below her voice, as she saw the Gener- 
 al himself making her especially comfortable with Cousin 
 Delight in. a back seat. 
 
 "Particularly, my dear madam," said Marmaduke 
 Wharne, coming close and speaking with clear emphasis, 
 "as she could not possibly have known that she had a 
 trump in her hand ! " 
 
 To tell of all that week's journeying, and of Dixville 
 Notch, — the adventure, the brightness, tne beauty, and 
 the glory, — the sympathy of abounding enjoyment, the 
 waking of new life that it was to some of them, — the 
 interchange of thought, the cementing of friendships, — 
 would be to begin another story, possibly a yet longer one. 
 Leslie's summer, according to the calendar, is already 
 ended. Much in this world must pause unfinished, or 
 come to abrupt conclusion. People " die suddenly at 
 last," after the most tedious illnesses. " Married and 
 lived happy ever after," is the inclusive summary that 
 winds up many an old tale whose time of action only runs 
 through hours. If in this summer-time with Leslie Gold 
 thwaite your thoughts have broadened somewhat witi 
 
A STTMM£B Q) [.ESLIE OOLDTHWATfE'S UFE. '£±1 
 
 ners, some questions for you have been partly answered ; 
 if it has appeared to you how a life enriches itself by 
 drawing toward and going forth into the life of others 
 through seeing how this began with her, it is no unfin- 
 ished tale that I leave with you. 
 
 A httle picture I will give you, farther on, a hint of 
 something farther yet, and say good by. 
 
 Some of them came back to Outledge, and stayed far 
 bto the still rich September. Delight and Leslie sat 
 before the Green Cottage one morning, in the heart of u 
 golden haze and a gorgeous bloom. All around the feet 
 of the great hills lay the garlands of early- ripened autumn. 
 You see nothing like it in the lowlands ; — nothing like 
 the fire of the maples, the carbuncle-splendor of the oaks, 
 the fiash of scarlet sumachs and creepers, the illumination 
 of every kind of little leaf, in its own way, upon which 
 the fi-ost-touch comes down from those tremendous heights 
 that stand rimy in each morning's sun, trying on white 
 caps that by and by they shall pull down heavily over 
 their brows, till they cloak all their shoulders also in the 
 like sculptured folds, to stand and wait, blind, awful 
 chrysalides, through the long winter of their death and 
 silence. 
 
 Delight and Leslie had got letters fi-om the Josselyns 
 and Dakie Thayne. There was news in them such as 
 thrills always the half-comprehending sympathies of girl- 
 hood. Leslie's vague suggestion of romance had become 
 fiilfilment. Dakie Thayne was wild with rejoicing that 
 dear old Noll was to marry Sue. " She had always made 
 him think of Noll, and his ways and likings, ever smee 
 ttjat day of the game of chess that by his means came to 
 
228 A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWATTE'S LIFE. 
 
 grief It was awful slang, but he could not help it : it 
 was just the very jolliest go ! " 
 
 Susan Josselyn's quiet letter said, — " That kindness 
 which kept us on and made it beautiful for us, strangers, 
 at Outledge, has brought to me, by God's providence, 
 this great happiness of my life." 
 
 After a long pause of trying to take it in, Leslie looked 
 up. "What a summer this has been ! So full, — so much 
 has happened ! I feel as if 1 had been living such a great 
 deal ! " 
 
 " You have been Uving in others' lives. You have had 
 a great deal to do with what has happened." 
 
 " O Cousin Delight ! I have only been among it ! I 
 could not do — except such a very little." 
 
 " There is a working from us beyond our own. But 
 if our working runs with that — ? You have done more 
 than you will ever know, little one." Delight Gold- 
 thwaite spoke very tenderly. Her own life, somehow, 
 had been closely touched, through that which had grown 
 and gathered about Leslie. " It depends on that abiding. 
 ' In me, and I in you ; so shall ye bear much fruit.' " 
 
 She stopped. She would not say more. Leslie 
 thought her talking rather wide of the first suggestion ; 
 but-this child would never know, as Delight had said, 
 what a centre, in her simple, loving way, she had been 
 for the working of a purpose beyond her thought. 
 
 Sin Saxon came across the lawn, crowned with gold 
 and scarlet, trailing creepers twined about her shoulders, 
 and flames of beauty in her full hands. " Miss Craydocke 
 says she praised God with every leaf she took. I 'm 
 afraid I forgot *so for the little ones. But I was so 
 
A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 229 
 
 greedy and so busy, getting them all for her. Come, 
 Miss Craydocke ; we 've got no end of pressing to do, to 
 save half of them ! " 
 
 "She can't do enough for her. O Cousin Delight, 
 the leaves are glorified, after all I Asenath never waa 
 BO charming ; and she is more beautiful than ever ! " 
 
 Delight's glance took in also another face than Asa- 
 nath's, grown into something in these months that no 
 training or taking thought could have done for it. 
 " Yes," she said, in the same still way in which she had 
 spoken before, " that comes too, — as God wills. All 
 things shall be added." 
 
 My hint is of a Western home, just outside the leaping 
 growth and ceaseless stir of a great Western city ; a large, 
 low, cosey mansion, with a certain Old-World mellowness 
 and rest in its aspect, — looking forth, even, as it does on 
 one side, upon the illimitable sanset-ward sweep of the 
 magnificent promise of the New ; on the other, it catches 
 a glimpse, beyond and beside the town, of the calm blue 
 of a fresh-water ocean. 
 
 The place is " Ingleside " ; the General will call it Dy 
 no other than the family name, — the sweet Scottish syn- 
 onyme for Home-corner. And here, while I have been 
 writing and you reading these pages, he has had them all 
 with him ; Oliver and Susan, on their bridal journey, 
 which waited for summer-time to come again, though 
 they have been six months married ; Rose, of course, and 
 Dakie Thayne, home in vacation from a great school 
 where he is studying hard, hoping for West Point by 
 anc by ; Leslie Goldthwaite, who is Dakie's inspiration 
 
230 A SUMMEB IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFB. 
 
 still; and our Flower, our Pansie, our Delight, — golden- 
 eyed Lady of innumerable sweet names. 
 
 The sweetest and truest of all, says the brave soldier 
 and high-souled gentleman, is that which he has per^ 
 niaded her to wear for life, — Delight Ingleside. 
 
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