ccasionally a walk in the
sunshine. Twice a week I go down to Boston, but the other days will be
ours."

"I like your room," she said frankly. "But what sights of books! Do you
read them all?"

"Not very often. I do not believe I have read them all through. But I
need them for reference, and some I like very much."

He wanted to add, "And some were a gift from your dear father," but he
could not disturb her happy mood.

"Suppose we go down on the porch. It is too wet to walk anywhere."

"Oh, yes;" delightedly. "And to-morrow I will go down to the vessel
again and see Captain Corwin. I do not want it to rain any more for
weeks and weeks."

"No, for days and days. Weeks would dry us all up, and we would have no
lovely spring flowers."

"And a famine maybe. Do the very poor people sometimes starve?"

"I do not think we have any very poor people, as they do in India. We
are not overcrowded yet."

The rain had beaten the paths and the street hard, and it looked as if
it had been swept clean. In spite of it all there were cheering
evidences of spring.

"There are some children in that house," she exclaimed, nodding her
head.

"Yes, the Uphams. There are two girls and two boys, the oldest and the
youngest, who isn't much more than a baby. Bentley Upham must be about
twelve. Polly is next, but she is a head taller than you. Then there's
Betty. I am glad there will be some little girls for you to play with."

She looked eager and interested.

"Will you come in to supper? Chilian, you ought to know better than to
be standing in this damp air. And that child with nothing around her!"

"The air is reviving, after having been housed for two days." But he
turned and went in, leading the child by the hand.

The long, bleak New England coast winter was over, though it had
lingered as if loath to go. Springs were seldom early, no one expected
that. But this one came on with a rush. The willows donned their silver
catkins and then threw them off for baby leaves, the lilac buds showed
purple, the elms and maples came out in bloom, and the soft ones drew
crowds of half-famished bees to their sweet tassels. The grass was
vividly green, iridescent in the morning sun, with the dew still upon
it. Snowdrop, crocus, hepatica, and coltsfoot, wild honeysuckle, were
all about, the forsythia flared out her saucy yellow, the fruit buds
swelled. Parties were out in the woods hunting trailing arbutus that has
been called the darling