ient of mine staying
at this place, Miss Chirk by name. I want you to look her up, make
inquiries into her case, and if you can get lodgings in the
neighborhood, stay till she is ready to be escorted back to New York. It
is all arranged, and I have a boy engaged to take your place for two
weeks. Now, then! do not leave umbrellas or packages in the train!
Good-by!' And there we were at the station; and he just shook hands, and
dropped me off on the platform, and off they went again. Isn't he a good
man? I tell you, if they was all like him, there wouldn't be no trouble
in the world for anybody." And Rose thought so too!

CHAPTER XV.

THE GREAT SCHEME.

In the latter days of August came a hot wave. It started, we will say,
from the Gulf, which was heated sevenfold on purpose, and which simmered
and hissed like a gigantic caldron. It came rolling up over the country,
scorching all it touched, spreading its fiery billows east and west. New
York wilted and fell prostrate. Boston wiped the sweat from her
intellectual brow, and panted in all the modern languages. Even Maine
was not safe among her rocks and pine-trees; and a wavelet of pure
caloric swept over quiet Bywood, and made its inhabitants very
uncomfortable. Miss Wealthy could not remember any such heat. There had
been a very hot season in 1853,--she remembered it because her father
had given up frills to his shirts, as no amount of starch would keep
them from hanging limp an hour after they were put on; but she really
did not think it was so severe as this. She was obliged to put away her
knitting, it made her hands so uncomfortable; and took to crocheting a
tidy with linen thread, as the coolest work she could think of.
Hildegarde and Rose put on the thin muslins which had lain all summer in
their clothespress drawers, and did their best to keep Benny cool and
quiet; read Dr. Kane's "Arctic Voyages," and discussed the possibility
of Miss Wealthy's allowing them to shave Dr. Johnson.

Bubble spent much of his time in cracking ice and making lemonade, when
he was not on or in the river.

As for Martha, she devoted herself to the concoction of cold dishes, and
fed the whole family on jellied tongue, lobster-salad, ice-cream, and
Charlotte Russe, till they rose up and blessed her.

When Flower-Day came, the girls braved the heat, and went to Fairtown
with the flowers; Miss Wealthy reluctantly allowing them to go, because
she was anxious, as they were, to k