r and wanton over the
southern side of the fence, and decked the banks with violets as
fearless and as fragile as New England girls; so that about the end of
June, when the heavens relented and the sun blazed out at last, there
was little for him to do but to redden and darken the daring fruits that
had attained almost their full growth without his countenance.

Then, indeed, Charlesbridge appeared to us a kind of Paradise. The wind
blew all day from the southwest, and all day in the grove across the way
the orioles sang to their nestlings.... The house was almost new and in
perfect repair; and, better than all, the kitchen had as yet given no
signs of unrest in those volcanic agencies which are constantly at work
there, and which, with sudden explosions, make Herculaneums and Pompeiis
of so many smiling households. Breakfast, dinner, and tea came up with
illusive regularity, and were all the most perfect of their kind; and we
laughed and feasted in our vain security. We had out from the city to
banquet with us the friends we loved, and we were inexpressibly proud
before them of the Help, who first wrought miracles of cookery in our
honor, and then appeared in a clean white apron, and the glossiest black
hair, to wait upon the table. She was young, and certainly very pretty;
she was as gay as a lark, and was courted by a young man whose clothes
would have been a credit, if they had not been a reproach, to our lowly
basement. She joyfully assented to the idea of staying with us till she
married.

In fact, there was much that was extremely pleasant about the little
place when the warm weather came, and it was not wonderful to us that
Jenny was willing to remain. It was very quiet; we called one another
to the window if a large dog went by our door; and whole days passed
without the movement of any wheels but the butcher's upon our street,
which flourished in ragweed and buttercups and daisies, and in the
autumn burned, like the borders of nearly all the streets in
Charlesbridge, with the pallid azure flame of the succory. The
neighborhood was in all things a frontier between city and country. The
horse-cars, the type of such civilization--full of imposture,
discomfort, and sublime possibility--as we yet possess, went by the head
of our street, and might, perhaps, be available to one skilled in
calculating the movements of comets; while two minutes' walk would take
us into a wood so wild and thick that no roof was visible