down to Springfield one night! I'd like to have seen the
Easthamptonites when they found their gates gone, and the Springfielders
when they opened that car. Holloa, mother! Isn't it jolly here? And
don't you smell the mince pies? I am going to eat two pieces!" And the
wild boy waltzed into the library in time to see his mother drop
languidly into an arm-chair, with the air of one who had endured all it
was possible to endure, and who considered herself a martyr.

"Pray be quiet, and come and unfasten my cloak. You forget that your
Aunt Lucy is no longer young, to be whirled round like a top."

"Young or not, she is as pretty as a girl, any day," Grey replied,
releasing his aunt and hastening to his mother.

Knowing her sister's dislike to the country, Miss Grey had spared no
pains to make the house as attractive as possible. There was no furnace,
but there were fires in every grate, and in the wide fire-place in the
large dining-room, where the bay-window looked out upon the hills and
the pretty little pond. Lucy's greenhouse had been stripped of its
flowers, which, in bouquets, and baskets, and bowls, were seen
everywhere, while pots of azaleas, and camellias, and rare lilies stood
in every nook and corner, filling the rooms with a perfume like early
June, when the air is full of sweetness.

But Mrs. Geraldine found the atmosphere stifling, and asked that a
window might be opened, and that Grey would find her smelling-salts
directly, as her head was beginning to ache.

Grey knew it always ached when she was in a crank, as he called her
moods, and he brought her salts, and undid her cloak and bonnet, and
kissed her once or twice, while his father, who was hot because she was
hot, said it was like an August day all over the house, and opened a
window, but shut it almost immediately, for a cloud of snow came
drifting in, and Mrs. Geraldine knew she should get neuralgia in such a
frightful draught.

"Come to your room and lie down. You will feel better when you are
rested," Lucy said, with a troubled look on her sweet face, as she led
the way to the large, cheerful chamber which her sister always occupied
when at Grey's Park.

"What time do you dine?" Geraldine asked, as she caught the savory smell
of something cooking in the kitchen.

"I have fixed the dinner hour at half-past two," Lucy replied, and
Geraldine rejoined:

"Half-past two! What a heathenish hour! and I do so detest early
dinners."

"Yes, I know