own before
the wood-fire; and the queer brass dragons on the andirons made me
smile, just as they always used. Jack stood at the window, looking
out; and neither of us had a word to say, though we had chattered at
each other every minute as we drove over from the steamer.

That first evening at dinner I looked across the table at my brother:
and our eyes met, and we both laughed heartily for very contentment
and delight.

"I'm sure Aunt Marion ought to be here to matronize you," said Jack.
Neither of us like Aunt Marion very well; and this was a great joke,
especially as she was ushered in directly to welcome me home.

Jack had been living at the house for a few weeks already; but it was
great fun, this beginning our housekeeping together, and we were busy
enough for some time. I had brought over a good many things that my
aunt had had in Florence, and to which I had become attached; and in
the course of many journeys both Jack and I had accumulated a great
many large and small treasures, some of which had not been unpacked
for years. I very soon knew my brother's best friends; and we both
tried to make our home not only cheerful and bright and pleasant in
every way, but we wished also to make it a home-like place, where
people might be sure of finding at least some sympathy and true
friendliness and help as well as pleasure. Mamma's old friends were
charmingly kind and polite to me; and, as Jack had foretold, I found
more acquaintances of my own than I had the least idea I should. I had
met abroad a great many of the people who came to see me; but the
strangest thing was to meet those whom I remembered as my playmates
and schoolmates, and to find them so entirely grown up, most of them
married, and with homes and children of their own instead of the
playhouses and dolls which I remembered.

We soon fell into a most comfortable fashion of living, we were both
very fond of giving quiet little dinners, my brother often brought
home a friend or two, and we were charmingly independent; life never
went better with two people than it did with Jack and me. We often had
some old friends of the family come to stay with us, and I sent hither
and yon for my own old cronies, with some of whom I had kept up our
friendship since school-days; and, while it was not a little sad to
meet some of them again, with others I felt as if we had only parted
yesterday.

I had been curious to know many things about Jack, and I found I had