Letter of Adventures--Wedding Cards--A Musical Marriage--Housekeeping
under Difficulties--Telegraphic Blunders--A Bust of Mr. Greeley--More
Visitors

CHAPTER XXIV.

"All that's Bright must Fade"--Departures--Preparing the House for the
Winter--Page's Portrait of Pickie--Packing up--Studious Habits of the
Domestics--The Cook and her Admirers--Adieu to Chappaqua

ILLUSTRATIONS

The Side-Hill House

The Spring

The Rail-Road Station

The House in the Woods

The Children's Play House

The Stone Barn

THE STORY OF A SUMMER;

OR,

JOURNAL LEAVES FROM CHAPPAQUA.

CHAPTER I.

Return to Chappaqua--A Walk over the Grounds--The Sidehill House--Our
First Sunday at Chappaqua--Drive to Mount Kisco--A Country Church--A
Dame Chatelaine--Our Domestic Surroundings.

CHAPPAQUA, WESTCHESTER Co.,

_New York_, May 28, 1873

Again at dear Chappaqua, after an absence of seven months. I have not
the heart to journalize tonight, everything seems so sad and strange.
What a year this has been--what bright anticipations, what overwhelming
sorrow!

_May 30_.

I have just returned from a long ramble over the dear old place; first
up to the new house so picturesquely placed upon a hill, and down
through the woods to the cool pine grove and the flower-garden. Here I
found a wilderness of purple and white lilacs, longing, I thought, for
a friendly hand to gather them before they faded; dear little
bright-eyed pansies, and scarlet and crimson flowering shrubs, a
souvenir of travel in England, with sweet-scented violets striped blue
and white, transplanted from Pickie's little garden at Turtle Bay long
years ago.

[Illustration: The Side-Hill House.]

Returning, I again climbed the hill, and unlocked the doors of the new
house; that house built expressly for Aunt Mary's comfort, but which
has never yet been occupied. Every convenience of the architect's art
is to be found in this house, from the immense, airy bedroom, with its
seven windows, intended for Aunt Mary, to _a porte cochere_ to protect
her against the inclemency of the weather upon returning from a drive.
But this house, in the building of which she took so keen an interest,
she was not destined to inhabit, although with that buoyancy of mind
and tenacity to life that characterized her during her long years of
weary illness, she contemplated being carried into it during the early
days of last October, and even ordered fires to be lighted