r walks enchanted
I will ever move undaunted.
Love hath messengers that borrow
Tragic masks of fear and sorrow,
When they come to do us kindness,--
And but for our tears and blindness,
We should see, through each disguise,
Cherub cheeks and angel eyes.

CULLET.

"Good morning! Is it really a rainy day?" asked Miselle, imploringly, as
she seated herself at the breakfast-table, and glanced from Monsieur to
the heavy sky and the vane upon the coach-house, steadily pointing west.

"Indeed, I hope not. Are you ready for Sandwich?" smilingly replied the
host.

"More than ready,--eager. But the clouds."

"One learns here upon the coast to brave the clouds; we have, to be
sure, a sea-turn just now, and perhaps there will be fog-showers
by-and-by, but nothing that need prevent our excursion."

"Delightful!" exclaimed Optima, Miselle, and Madame, applying themselves
to eggs and toast with that calm confidence in a masculine decision so
sustaining to the feminine nature.

The early breakfast over, Monsieur, with a gentle hint to the ladies of
haste in the matter of toilet, went to see that Gypsy and Fanny were
properly harnessed, and that a due number of cushions, rugs, and
water-proof wrappers were placed in the roomy carriage.

Surely, never were hats so hastily assumed, never did gloves condescend
to be so easily found, never were fewer hasty returns for "something I
have forgotten," and Monsieur had barely time to send two messages to
the effect that all was ready, when the feminine trio descending upon
him triumphantly disproved once and forever the hoary slander upon their
sex of habitual unpunctuality.

With quiet self-sacrifice Optima placed herself beside Madame in the
back of the carryall, leaving for Miselle the breezy seat in front, with
all its facilities for seeing, hearing, smelling, breathing; and let us
hope that the little banquet thus prepared for the conscience of that
young woman gave her as much satisfaction as Miselle's feast of the
senses did to her.

Arching their necks, tossing their manes, spattering the dewy sand with
their little hoofs, Gypsy and Fanny rapidly whirled the carriage through
the drowsy town, across the Pilgrim Brook, and so, by the pretty suburb
of "T'other Side," (which no child of the Mayflower shall ever consent
to call Wellingsley,) to the open road skirting the blue waters of the
bay.

"Ah, this is fine!" cried Miselle, snatching f