w. It was not one of Mrs. Todd's morning soliloquies; she was not addressing her plants and flowers in words of either praise or blame

t was a strange hour for the arrival of a guest, and still too soon for the general run of busines

y declared itself to my

m Blac

rotested gently, "I don't

last year, you may remember, you never stopped here at all the day you went up country. An' the frost come at last an' blacked it. I never saw any herb that so objected to gardin ground; might as well try to flo

ly mail boat. William's breakfast had been slighted; he had taken his cup of tea and merely pushed back the rest on the kitchen table. He was now sitting in a helpless condition by the side window, with one of his sister's purple calico aprons pinned close

ghtful terms with each other for once, and there was something of cheerful anticipation in their morning talk. I was reminded of Medea's anointing Jason before the great episode of the iron bulls, but to-day William really could not be going up count

other, gettin' along in years as he is. An' you 'd think he 'd seen full enough o' fish, but once a year he has to br

l of challenge that William changed

at me and not at her. "'T is the pret

ile," Mrs. Todd concluded, putting a last dab of the mysterious compound so

ere was a horse and wagon outside the garden fence, and presently we stood where we could see him driving

e spoke of the penny-royal lotion. "I don't know sometimes but William's kind of poetical," she continue

At last she resumed relations with her actual surroundings. "I shall now put my lobsters on. They'll make us a good supper," she announced. "Then I can let the fire out for all day; give it a holiday, same's William. You can have a litt

that I should hear something more about her brother and their island life, and sat idly by the kitchen window looking at the morning glories that shaded it, believing that some flaw of wind might se

ite schoolhouse on the hill where I did my task of writing. I had been almost sure of a holiday when I discovered that Mrs. Todd was likely to take one herself; we had not been far afield to gather herbs and pleasures for many days now, but a little later she had silently vanished. I found my luncheo

t every step. There was no relenting voice to be heard, and when I reached the schoolhouse, I found that I had left an open window a

ng so close to nature that one simply is a piece of nature, following a primeval instinct with perfect self-forgetfulness and forgetting everything except the dreamy consciousness of pleasant freedom, it is to take the course of a shady trout brook. The dark pools and the sunny shallows beckon one on; the wedge of sky between

t of wild-roses and straggling sumach to see the white nose and meagre shape of the Caplin ho

quite a piece up the road. I thought pe

choolhouse window with a beating heart. The spruce-beer bottle was not yet in the well, and with that and my luncheon, and Pleasure at the helm, I went out into the happy wo