cle" to this
country neighborhood, nor to any other community. Far, oh, far from
that! They were Aunt and Uncle only to Jerry Swaim, the orphaned and
only child of Mrs. Darby's brother Jim, whose charming girlish presence
made the whole community, wherever she might chance to be. They were
cousin, however, to Eugene Wellington, a young artist of more than
ordinary merit, also orphaned and alone, except for a sort of cousinship
with Uncle Cornelius.

"Eden" was a beautifully located and handsomely appointed estate of two
hundred acres, offering large facilities to any photographer seeking
magazine illustrations of country life in America. Indeed, the place
was, as Aunt Jerry Darby declared, "summer and winter, all shot up by
camera-toters and dabbed over with canvas-stretchers' paints," much to
the owner's disgust, to whom all camera-toters and artists, except
Cousin Eugene Wellington, were useless idlers. The rustic little railway
station, hidden by maple-trees, was only three or four good
discus-throws from the house. But the railroad itself very properly
dropped from view into a wooded valley on either side of the station.
There was nothing of cindery ugliness to mar the spot where the dwellers
in "Eden" could take the early morning train for the city, or drop off
in the cool of the afternoon into a delightful pastoral retreat. Beyond
the lawns and buildings, gardens and orchards, the land billowed away
into meadow and pasture and grain-field, with an insert of leafy grove
where song-birds builded an Eden all their own. The entire freehold of
Aunt Jerry Darby and Uncle Cornie, set down in the middle of a Western
ranch, would have been a day's journey from its borders. And yet in it
country life was done into poetry, combining city luxuries and
conveniences with the dehorned, dethorned comfort and freedom of idyllic
nature. What more need be said for this "Eden" into which only the good
little snakes were permitted to enter?

In the late afternoon Aunt Jerry sat in the rose-arbor with her Japanese
work-basket beside her, and a pearl tatting-shuttle between her thumb
and fingers. One could read in a thoughtful glance all there was to know
of Mrs. Darby. Her alert air and busy hands bespoke the habit of
everlasting industry fastened down upon her, no doubt, in a far-off
childhood. She was luxurious in her tastes. The satin gown, the diamond
fastening the little cap to her gray hair, the elegant lace at her
throat and w