rchard that encompassed it
about, a garden-plot stretched upward to the whispering birches on the
slope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they had
stood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way and
found them young.

One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowers
in the meadow, blackbirds by the brook, and the low of kine upon the
hill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certain
humble history began.

"Nan!"

"Yes, Di."

And a head, brown-locked, blue-eyed, soft-featured, looked in at the
open door in answer to the call.

"Just bring me the third volume of 'Wilhelm Meister,'--there's a dear.
It's hardly worth while to rouse such a restless ghost as I, when I'm
once fairly laid."

As she spoke, Di pushed up her black braids, thumped the pillow of the
couch where she was lying, and with eager eyes went down the last page
of her book.

"Nan!"

"Yes, Laura," replied the girl, coming back with the third volume for
the literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too intent upon
the "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a
certain plain sinner.

"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it's
the only thing fit for me this hot weather."

And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown more
gracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she
was drawing.

"Little daughter!"

"Yes, father."

"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at
three; and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;--I
shall be in the lower garden."

The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into that
domestic purgatory on a summer day,--the kitchen. There were vines
about the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but it
was haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such varied
incense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before which
such dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of the
priestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories
of wasted temper, time, and toil.

Nan was tired, having risen with the birds,--hurried, having many
cares those happy little housewives never know,--and disappointed in a
hope that hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined." She was too young to
make the anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too
patient to be bu