wed me a tall, lean woman whose skin, once
fair, was now nearly as yellow as the freckles spattered all over her
forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. Nose and chin were long, her
cheek-bones were high, her eyes were pale, the lashes so light and thin
as to be scarcely visible at all, and her scanty flaxen hair was
dragged tightly away from a high bony forehead. Her gown to-day was
white cambric, as clean, as glossy, and as opaque as cream-laid
letter-paper. Her head was bare, and she carried over it a green parasol
which made her complexion livid. Her voice was soft and sweet, and her
manners were liked by everybody. I was glad to think of these things,
and to feel the charm of tone and manner, as she asked if I "would not
like to pay a visit to the peaches and watermelons."

I should have preferred to stay where I was, having got very well
acquainted with my attendant fairies, and eaten enough sweets to take
the edge from my appetite, even for ripe, fresh fruit. Still, I got up
with a tolerable show of cordiality, comprehending that she meant to
please me, took the hand she offered, and was soon out of the cool shade
in the open field separating garden from orchard. Captain Gates was
really as proud of his reputation as the most successful fruit-grower
in the county as his wife was, although he affected to ridicule her
weakness in the same direction. There were two acres of peach trees,
most of them laden with fruit. When pressed to "eat all I could
swallow," I managed to do away with three immense globes of
crimson-and-gold, and then gave out, shamefacedly:--

"You see I am so little, and the peaches are so big!" I urged. "I hold
just so many and no more."

"Of course, you comical little thing!" interrupted Cousin Nancy, highly
amused. "By and by, on our way back from the watermelon patch, maybe
there will be more room. I shan't ask you to pick the melons from the
vines and eat _them_ by the dozen. Come along!"

She did not seem to mind the heat that struck upon my face and head like
the breath of an oven, as we crossed another open field, to that in
which Captain Gates's famous melons lay by the hundred, growing larger
and more luscious in the August sunlight that warmed them through and
through. Some were dark green, some light green, some were streaked and
mottled with white-and-green.

"Oh, Cousin Nancy!" I cried, "I did not know there were so many in the
world! What _will_ you do with them all?"

She led the