could remember.
She gave me a silent kiss, and went away, leaving the letter, yet
unopened, lying in my lap. I did not open it just then. I was thinking
of Josephine Bowen.

Every summer, for three years, Mr. and Mrs. Bowen had come to Ridgefield
for country-air, bringing with them their adopted daughter, whose
baptismal name had resigned in favor of the pet appellation "Kitten,"--a
name better adapted to her nature and aspect than the _Imperatrice_
appellation that belonged to her. She was certainly as charming a little
creature as ever one saw in flesh and blood. Her sweet child's face, her
dimpled, fair cheeks, her rose-bud of a mouth, and great, wistful, blue
eyes, that laughed like flax-flowers in a south-wind, her tiny, round
chin, and low, white forehead, were all adorned by profuse rings and
coils and curls of true gold-yellow, that never would grow long, or be
braided, or stay smooth, or do anything but ripple and twine and push
their shining tendrils out of every bonnet or hat or hood the little
creature wore, like a stray parcel of sunbeams that would shine. Her
delicate, tiny figure was as round as a child's,--her funny hands as
quaint as some fat baby's, with short fingers and dimpled knuckles. She
was a creature as much made to be petted as a King-Charles spaniel,--and
petted she was, far beyond any possibility of a crumpled rose-leaf. Mrs.
Bowen was fat, loving, rather foolish, but the best of friends and the
poorest of enemies; she wanted everybody to be happy, and fat, and well
as she was, and would urge the necessity of wine, and entire idleness,
and horse-exercise, upon a poor minister, just as honestly and
energetically as if he could have afforded them: an idea to the contrary
never crossed her mind spontaneously, but, if introduced there, brought
forth direct results of bottles, bank-bills, and loans of ancient
horses, only to be checked by friendly remonstrance, or the suggestion
that a poor man might be also proud. Mr. Bowen was tall and spare, a
man of much sense and shrewd kindliness, but altogether subject and
submissive to "Kitten's" slightest wish. She never wanted anything; no
princess in a story-book had less to desire; and this entire spoiling
and indulgence seemed to her only the natural course of things. She
took it as an open rose takes sunshine, with so much simplicity,
and heartiness, and beaming content, and perfume of sweet, careless
affection, that she was not given over to any l