, stately cherry-trees that were a sight to behold in their
early bloom and in the rich harvest of fruiting.

Just at the brow of the hill stood a rather quaint house, with the end
to the street. It was built against the side of the hill. You ascended a
row of stone steps, and reached the lower floor, which was a dining-room
with a wide stone-paved area, then you went up several more steps to a
cheerful sunny room, and this was the kitchen. When you went upstairs
again, one side of the house was just even with the ground, and the
other up a whole story. Here was a parlour, a sitting-room, several
sleeping chambers; but what the little girl came to love most of all was
a great piazza built over the area downstairs, with a row of wide steps.
When you were up there, you were two stories above the street, and you
could look down the long hill and all about. It was a beautiful
prospect. Afterward, the little girl found some chalets in Switzerland
that made her think of this odd house that had been added to since the
first cottage was built.

There was always a host of people in the old house. Hospitality must
have been written on its very gates, for relatives, unto the third and
fourth generation, were continually made welcome: a sweet, placid
grandmother who had seen her daughter, the housemother, laid away to her
silent resting-place, and who had tried to supply her place to the
children; the father; the aunt who took part of the care; the sons and
daughters, some of whom had grown up and married, and whose children
made glad the old home.

There was a houseful of them now; but there was a wide out-of-doors for
them to play in. A few hundred feet farther up, where the road turned
and ran off to Kingsbridge, as well as to the Harlem River, stood the
village smithy; and the Major, who had been in the War of 1812, had
relegated the business mostly to his sons. He enjoyed the coming and
going, the bright young faces, and had a hearty welcome for the
children, though he sometimes pretended to scold them.

A queer tract of land it was, with a great rift of rock running through
it where the children played house, and had parties, and occasionally
took their dinner out to eat in picnic fashion. Just beyond the strata
of rock, on the good ground, stood two splendid apple-trees called
"Jersey Sweetings," and for nearly two summer months their bounty was
the delight of the children. Farther down, the ground sloped abruptly
and se