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ient of mine staying at this place, Miss Chirk by name. I want you to look her up, make inquiries into her case, and if you can get lodgings in the neighborhood, stay till she is ready to be escorted back to New York. It is all arranged, and I have a boy engaged to take your place for two weeks. Now, then! do not leave umbrellas or packages in the train! Good-by!' And there we were at the station; and he just shook hands, and dropped me off on the platform, and off they went again. Isn't he a good man? I tell you, if they was all like him, there wouldn't be no trouble in the world for anybody." And Rose thought so too! CHAPTER XV. THE GREAT SCHEME. In the latter days of August came a hot wave. It started, we will say, from the Gulf, which was heated sevenfold on purpose, and which simmered and hissed like a gigantic caldron. It came rolling up over the country, scorching all it touched, spreading its fiery billows east and west. New York wilted and fell prostrate. Boston wiped the sweat from her intellectual brow, and panted in all the modern languages. Even Maine was not safe among her rocks and pine-trees; and a wavelet of pure caloric swept over quiet Bywood, and made its inhabitants very uncomfortable. Miss Wealthy could not remember any such heat. There had been a very hot season in 1853,--she remembered it because her father had given up frills to his shirts, as no amount of starch would keep them from hanging limp an hour after they were put on; but she really did not think it was so severe as this. She was obliged to put away her knitting, it made her hands so uncomfortable; and took to crocheting a tidy with linen thread, as the coolest work she could think of. Hildegarde and Rose put on the thin muslins which had lain all summer in their clothespress drawers, and did their best to keep Benny cool and quiet; read Dr. Kane's "Arctic Voyages," and discussed the possibility of Miss Wealthy's allowing them to shave Dr. Johnson. Bubble spent much of his time in cracking ice and making lemonade, when he was not on or in the river. As for Martha, she devoted herself to the concoction of cold dishes, and fed the whole family on jellied tongue, lobster-salad, ice-cream, and Charlotte Russe, till they rose up and blessed her. When Flower-Day came, the girls braved the heat, and went to Fairtown with the flowers; Miss Wealthy reluctantly allowing them to go, because she was anxious, as they were, to k
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