c
everywhere was perfectly bewitching. Everything was so different. She
was taking lessons of a Fraeulein, and had to talk German at the table.
They had been through several churches, and one picture gallery that was
magnificent. A little withered-up old German was giving her some
painting lessons. If Hanny could only be there, she would be quite
content; yet she did think she loved America best.

Hanny was so delighted that her eyes shone, and her cheeks were pink as
a rose-leaf.

But Mrs. Odell said she could notice that her appetite was better, and
she was doing her best to fat her up a little, and make her look like a
country girl.

Mr. Odell took her about with him when he could. There were so many
beautiful places up and down the valley of the Bronx. They went up to
White Plains, and took everybody by surprise. Grandmother up there was
quite feeble now.

Then it happened, rather oddly, that when Cousin Jennie came down for
her, as there was no one scarcely at Fordham but the regular family,
Mrs. Odell was going to have a houseful of relatives from the West. She
just wished they had their new house at such times as these. She could
make a bed on the floor for Janey and Polly, and that would give her two
spare rooms.

The girls didn't feel so badly, as there were two Western cousins of
their age, and they would bring them up to Fordham.

The little girl was not at all tired of her pleasant hosts; but there
was a romantic side to the coming visit that she could not talk over
with Polly and Janey; and she was most famished for reading, as the
Odells were not of the intellectual sort. Mrs. Odell didn't like the
children to handle her parlour books, in their red morocco bindings,
that were spread around on the centre-table.

Hanny's favourite place at the Fordham house was up on the high piazza.
To be sure, it was sunny in the morning; but then Doctor Joe said
sunshine was good for her, and one corner soon grew shady. There was
some one passing up and down continually: the priests from St. John's
College, in their long black coats and queer hats, generally reading as
they walked; the labourers who worked on the railroad; the people going
to the station; and the girls out calling in the afternoons in their
pretty white gowns. There was no Jerome Park for stylish driving.
Indeed, it was a plain little country village, and most of the life
centred about the corner grocery and the blacksmith shop, where men
talked