nd-reliable,
Jane McElroy, who cared for me when a baby, to stay here with the
Infant. The second letter was from Maria Maxwell, a distant cousin of
Bart's. She has also heard of our intended vacation,--indeed the
rapidity with which the news travels and the interest it causes are good
proofs of our stay-at-home tendencies and the general sobriety of our
six years of matrimony!

"Maria is a very bright, adaptable woman of about thirty-five, who
teaches music in the New York public schools, is alone in the world, and
manages to keep an attractive home in a mere scrap of a flat. When she
comes to visit us, we like her as well the last day of her stay as the
first, which fact speaks volumes for her character! Though forced by
circumstances to live in town, she has a deep love for the country, and
wishes, if we intend to leave the house open, to come and care for it in
our absence, even offering to cook for herself if we do not care to have
the expense of a maid, saying, 'to cook a real meal, with a real fire
instead of gas, will be a great and refreshing change for me, so you
need feel under no obligation whatever!'

"Thinking of the pity of wasting such tempting offers as these, I went
to church with my body only, my mind staying outside under a
horse-chestnut tree, and instead of listening as I should, I looked
sidewise out of the window at my double in the shade and wondered if,
after all, the stay-at-home vacation was not a wild scheme. There being
a Puritan streak in me, via my father, I sometimes question the right of
what I wish to do simply because I like to do it.

"At dinner I was so grumpy, answering in monosyllables, that sensitive
Bart looked anxious, and as if he thought I was disappointed at the
possible turn of affairs, but _The Man from Everywhere_ laughed, saying,
'Let her alone; she is not through incubating the plan, and you know the
best of setting hens merely cluck and growl when disturbed.'

"Immediately after dinner Bart and _The Man_ went for a walk up the
river valley, and I, going to the living room, seated myself by the
window, where I could watch the Infant playing on the gravel outside, it
being the afternoon out of both the general maid Anastasia and Barney
the man, between whom I suspect matrimonial intentions.

"The singing of the birds, the hum of bees in the opening lilacs, and
the garden fragrance blending with the Infant's prattle, as she babbled
to her dolls, floated through the o