was not directed to any
particular person.

Cousin Giles declared he was sorry to get back to Boston. He could not
remember when he had enjoyed such a good time. Then in a business way it
had been a success, which added to his satisfaction.

They really had to stay in Boston one night. They would fain have kept
Cynthia for a week, but she said she was tired of just changing from one
frock to another, and longed for more variety.

"And I'm so glad to get back home again," she cried delightedly. "I've
had a splendid time, and I like Anthony ever so much. Cousin Giles was
so nice and fatherly. He ought to adopt Anthony and give him his name,
and that would always make me think of father. But after all, home is
best. Oh, suppose I was a waif, just being handed from one to another!"

She looked frightened with the imaginary lot. She expressed emotions so
easily.

"You couldn't have been;" hoarsely.

"Cousin Chilian, if you had not been in the world, or if you hadn't been
willing to take me--I don't think father knew much about Cousin
Giles--why, I must have gone to strangers."

There were tears in her eyes, and a sweet melancholy in her voice.

She had so much to tell Cousin Eunice that it seemed really as if she
had taken the journey with them. She put on Jane's faded gingham
sunbonnet and gave her voice a queer nasal twang, and talked as some of
the women did up there in the wilderness, who thought a city "must be an
awfully crowdy place an' she jes' didn't see how people managed to live
in it. An' as fer the sea, give her dry land every time."

Then she talked the French-English patois of the emigrants from Canada,
and told of their funny attire, and their log huts, sometimes with only
one big room, with a stone chimney in the centre, and sawed logs for
seats.

"They did that in Salem nigh on to two hundred years ago," said Cousin
Eunice.

"How much people do learn by living," remarked the little girl sagely.

Then the olden round began. Being asked out to tea and inviting in
return, sewing bees, quilting parties when some girl was making an
outfit. And though the elders shook their heads at such a waste of time,
they went out to walk in the afternoon and stopped in the shops that
were making a show on Essex Street and Federal Street. There was Miss
Rust's pretty millinery parlor--it had a sofa in the front room and a
table with an embroidered cover that Cynthia had sent her. They talked
of new styles and c