as the first! Cousin Chilian was always
thinking up such nice things.

"Oh," she cried, tying the big Leghorn hat down, making a great bow
under her chin, "I must get my flowers for Cousin Elizabeth."

When she came in she would have flown upstairs, but Rachel stopped her.

"Miss Elizabeth is asleep. She had a bad spell in the night and the
doctor doesn't want her disturbed. I'll take them."

"Oh!" She looked disappointed. "Tell her good-bye and that I was sorry
not to come in and say it. And give her the flowers. I hope she will be
better to-night."

What a great thing it was to go off in the stage! It was a fine morning
with an easterly breeze. To be sure, the roads were dusty, but
travellers were not so dainty in those days. Cynthia had a dust cloak of
some thin material that shielded her white frock. There were three men
and two women. They sat on the middle seat, two of the men on front with
the driver, the other back with the ladies. Presently the driver blew a
long toot on his horn and they came to a little town with a tavern, as
they were called then, at its very entrance.

Two of the passengers left, one came in. The horses had a drink and on
they went over hill and dale, through great farms, where there were not
more than two or three houses in sight. The stage stopped for a man who
gave a loud halloo, and he climbed in. Then the horn gave another loud
signal.

So it went on. Some places were very pretty, great fields of corn waving
in the sunshine, potatoes, stubble where grain had been cut, stretches
of woodland, high, rather rough hills, then towns again. The sun went
under a cloud, which made it pleasanter. The passengers changed now and
then. One woman told her next neighbor "she was goin' in to Boston to
shop, because things were cheaper now. She always went after the rush
was over. There were cambrics, she heard, for one and ninepence, and
cotton cloth home-made was so much cheaper than the imported, but you
had to bleach it. And little traps that you couldn't get at a country
store."

Cynthia was tired and sleepy when they reached their journey's end,
which was Marlborough Street, where Cousin Giles had an office.

"Well! well! well!" he ejaculated in surprise. "Why, Miss Cynthia
Leverett, I'm glad to see you. Have you come to town to shop?"

Chilian made a little sign. "She has a whole month's vacation and we are
going to fill it up with journeys, taking Boston first."

"That's right. We