y of high prices for everything in them. Yes, if you have no
end to your purse, you can buy things, certainly. But to look at what
is around us here, one would think your father didn't mean us to have
much of anything!"

"Mother, he means you to have all you want. We thought you just wanted
country air."

"And nothing to eat?"

"We are not starving _yet_," said Dolly, smiling, and arranging the
strawberries.

"These are a gift. A gift I shouldn't think your father would like to
take, or have us take, which comes to the same thing. We used to have
enough for ourselves and our neighbours too, once, when we were at
home, in America. We are nobody here."

"We are just ourselves, mother; what we always were. It does not make
much difference what people think of us."

"Not much difference," cried Mrs. Copley, "about what people think of
you! And then, what is to become of you, I should like to know? Nobody
seeing you, and no chance for anything! I wonder if your father means
you never to be married?"

"You do not want me married, mother; and not to an Englishman, anyhow."

"Why not? And how are you going to marry anybody else, out here? Can
you tell me? But, O Dolly! I am tormented to death!"

"Don't, dear mother. That is what makes you ill. What is the matter?
What troubles you?"

Mrs. Copley did not answer at once.

"You are as sweet as a honeysuckle," she said. "And to think that
nobody should see you!"

Dolly's dimples came out here strong.

"Are you tormented to death about that?"

Another pause came, and Mrs. Copley finally left the table with the air
of one who is thinking what she will not speak. She went to the
honeysuckle porch and sat down, resting her head in her hand and
surveying the landscape. Twilight was falling over it now, soft and
dewy.

"I don't see a sign of anything human, anywhere," she remarked. "Is it
because it is so dark?"

"No, mother; there are no houses in sight."

"Nor from the back windows?"

"No, mother."

"Where is the village you talk about?"

"Half a mile away; the woods and rising ground of Brierley Park hide it
from us."

"And in this wilderness your father expects me to get well!"

"Why, I think it is charming!" Dolly cried. "My drive home to-night was
perfectly lovely, mother."

"I didn't have it."

"No, of course; but the country is exceedingly pretty."

"I can't make your father out."

Dolly was hushed here. She was at a loss likewise on this poin