A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life.

you to-night," said Jeannie Hadd

usness and thought sent forth, not fluttering in her robes and ribbons; with the others there was a little air and bustle, as of people coming into an opera-box in presence of a full house. They said "lovely!" and "splendid!" of course,-their little word of ap

to Marmaduke Wharne. The old man laughe

oman was honest. Her 'black alpacky' wa

ll, to the parlor again. Mrs. Linceford's party moved also, and drifted with the r

e. "But he'll eat you up, for all that. I wouldn't trust

m see," replied

For the 'bright and kind and pleasant,' eh?" the

d Leslie, with brave simplici

partner, then,"

-looking; but only a boy, and a little shy and stiff at first, as boys have to be for a while. Leslie had seen him before, in the afternoon, rolling the balls through a solitary

ie Goldthwaite, and I think he wo

oung girl with a smile lurking behind the diffidence in

n of mustaches; and one of the Thoresbys had a young captain of cavalry, with gold bars on his shoulders. Elinor Hadden raised her pretty eyebro

with me," said the boy simply. "It'

re alone?"

nd perhaps my uncle and the rest of them, to meet me where I'm to be, down among

don't st

hat it was like. I've got a jolly

hy, we are g

y, pausing a second for a fresher or pol

" answered Leslie, with

for introduction to any other young girl in the room. There had been something in Leslie Goldthwaite's face that had looked

s the only one that's had anything to say to me, and I like him. I've been down to the old mill with him to-day. Those people"-motioning slightl

hy should th

e. And a word of his is as much as a whole preach of an

onded Lesli

for?" whispered Elin

ot something to say

ke a hen after a stray chicke

ne will t

me back just as Leslie was making her way

ntly?-if you don't get a better pa

d Leslie, smiling. "I will, at any rate; that

turned eagerly to Leslie. "The telescope's fixed, out on the balcony; and you c

eford?" asked Mr. Wharne of the

e and Elinor and the Miss Thoresbys were doing the ine

Linceford, with a shade of doubt in her

ut stopped. The name, which she had n

ne," said the boy, wit

ng a chair. "I suppose I ought to have come to you first; but it's all

looking away through the mystic tube into space, and seeing Jupiter with his moons, in a fair round picture framed expressly to her eye; yet

for the name," answ

call me so, and I like it best," the boy was expl

re. She forgot the galop, and the piano tinkled out its gayest notes unheard. "It s

lordlier planets. They looked upon her mystic, glistening hill-tops, and down her awful craters; and from these they seemed to drop a little, as a bird might, and alight on the earth-mountains loo

at his own request, the cavalry captain. She did not know in the least, absorbed in her pure enjoyment, t

asked for it. "That was something," as Hans Andersen would say; but "What a goose not to have manag

she had been glad to be dressed nicely, and to look her best: but somehow she had not

e spoken it to Cousin Delight. "One must look out for that, and keep at it. That's the eye-stone-woman's way; and it's what has kept me from worrying and despising myself to-night. It only happe

she had touched upon that, at last, wi

game of croquet. This was at her instance; he was standing aside, not expecting to be counted in, though he had broken off his game of solitaire, and driven the ball

esby declared, in confidence, to Mrs. Linceford, that "old Wharne would make any house intolerable; and that Jefferson, at any rate, was no place for more than a week's stay." She "wouldn't have it mentioned in the house, however, that she was

and the Klines were with yo

o indeed; we only fe

high up on her temples, her severely-handsome dark eyebrows, and her own perfect, white teeth; yet she could do a shabby thing, you see,-a thing made shabby by its motive. The Devreaux and Klines were only "floating people," boarding about,-not permanently valuable as acquaintances; well enough to kn

he stake, before there had been even a "rover" upon the other side. Except, indeed, as they were sent roving, away off over the bank and down the road, from the sloping

know anything at all," said Imogen Thoresby discontented

er fourteenth year,-and of "poking." But Imogen walked away quite unconcernedly, and Jeannie Hadden follo

t Leslie's ball downhill. Nothing ever really put Elinor Hadden out, the girls said of her, except when her hair wouldn't go up; and then it was funny to see her. It was a sunbeam in a snarl, or a snow flurry out of a blue sky. This in parent

monopolizing a girl two or three years older. He'll make you mend his gloves, and he'll beg your hair-ribbons for hat-strings; and when you're not dancing or playing croquet with him, he'll be after you w

ming over with merriment and mischief;-"but there's the best joke brewing. It's just like a farce. Is the door shut, Elinor? And are the Thoresbys gone upstairs? They're going with us, you know? And there's nothing to be said about it? And it's partly to get away from Marmaduke Wharne? Well, he's going, too. And it's greatly becaus

y; and Mrs. Linceford had her quiet fun

led?-by the moderns, I mean," said Mr. Wharne. "

has just heard of it, and it's the knowing and stylish thing to go there. For a week or two it may be quiet; but then there'll be a jam. There'll be hops, and tableaux, and theatrical

his determination,-until the evening; when plans cam

you know,-one can't always have that. We shall probably fill a stage: so they will take us through, instead o

rooms are engaged for the fifteenth, at Saratoga; we've very little time left for the mountains, and it w

lace really to stay at; you got the

in. All things come round, or go by, I find, if one only keeps one's self quiet. But I shall

Look, Elinor, and see if you can tell me where we are?" was Leslie's cry,

al average of the vast mountain-country heaped itself in swelling masses,-miles and miles of beetling height and solid breadth. This morning it was gone; only the great peaks showed themselves, as a far-off, cliff-bound shore, or here and there a green island in a vast, vaporous lake. The night-chill had come down among the heights, condensing the warm ex

arly summons came for them. "Oh dear! oh dear! if we were onl

ll which is the up-side of that! And-oh dear! I've no time to get into a fuss!" Elinor had not disdained the beauty and wonder withou

à la furieuse!" But she laughed before she had done scolding, catching sight of her own exaggerated little frown in the

n the valley when they went down. They were growing filmy, and floating away in shining fragments up over the s

ame whispering at her heart again: that there was all this in the world, and that one need not be utterly dull and mean, and dead to it; that something in her answered to the greatness overshadowing her; that it was

, once more, in its own questioning. She remembered what she had said to Cousin Delight: "It is all outside. Going, and doing,

little feminine absorptions and interests; and back to the fig-tree again, ending with that word,-"the real living is the urging toward the fruit"? Her day's journey, and the hints of life-narrowed, suffering, working-that had come to her, each with its problem? Marmaduke Wharne's indignant protest against people who "did not know their daily bread," a

ning there, like the morning. It seemed, in that glimpse,

to do that? Perhaps-by ever so little; the fruit might be but a berry, yet it might be fair and full, after its kind; and at least some little bird might be the better for it. All aroun

tradictory phase of self that, with us all, is almost ready,

go down from here,

've been in the clouds long enough. I shall b

t as anybody. That isn't the hard thing to do. Let's

s;" they were up in the stable-yard before Mrs. Linceford's party came out from the

k. There was room for two more, and Dakie Thayne took a place; but the young ladies looked askance, for Ginevra had been detained by her mother, and Imog

e there, looking for her friend. "I've saved a place for you,"-and Jeannie Had

k corner-seats. Ginevra, with Leslie and Elinor, and one or two others too late for their own interest, but quite c

villages. There's no fun inside," said Imogen

re be anot

y. This one g

on the other, th

eam, and goes on ah

cried Mrs. Thoresby. "Don

back, on the roof?"

moved toward the coach-window to speak with her mother, he lean

ssible place,-a place already asked for by another. She thanked Dakie Thayne, and, with

t my brown veil in your room, Mrs. Linceford,"

he spoke, came down on her side by the wheel, and, spring

horesby was by the driver's side. A little ashamed, in spite of herself, though it was done under cover of a joke; but "All's

t, without a word, when he

e, with real regret, accen

man, who made the third upon the coach

is cap, with a little irony of deference, and lifted it off with the grace of a grown man. "I know

ke Wharne, as the door closed upon the boy, and the

ng; but it is neither the best of place or