oyed making our plans,
and deciding what we should want, and going to the shops together. I
think we felt most important the day we conferred with Ann and made out
a list of the provisions which must be ordered. This was being
housekeepers in earnest. Mr. Dockum happened to come to town, and we
sent Ann and Maggie, with most of our boxes, to Deephaven in his company
a day or two before we were ready to go ourselves, and when we reached
there the house was opened and in order for us.

On our journey to Deephaven we left the railway twelve miles from that
place, and took passage in a stage-coach. There was only one passenger
beside ourselves. She was a very large, thin, weather-beaten woman, and
looked so tired and lonesome and good-natured, that I could not help
saying it was very dusty; and she was apparently delighted to answer
that she should think everybody was sweeping, and she always felt, after
being in the cars a while, as if she had been taken all to pieces and
left in the different places. And this was the beginning of our
friendship with Mrs. Kew.

After this conversation we looked industriously out of the window into
the pastures and pine-woods. I had given up my seat to her, for I do not
mind riding backward in the least, and you would have thought I had done
her the greatest favor of her life. I think she was the most grateful of
women, and I was often reminded of a remark one of my friends once made
about some one: "If you give Bessie a half-sheet of letter-paper, she
behaves to you as if it were the most exquisite of presents!" Kate and I
had some fruit left in our lunch-basket, and divided it with Mrs. Kew,
but after the first mouthful we looked at each other in dismay. "Lemons
with oranges' clothes on, aren't they?" said she, as Kate threw hers out
of the window, and mine went after it for company; and after this we
began to be very friendly indeed. We both liked the odd woman, there was
something so straightforward and kindly about her.

"Are you going to Deephaven, dear?" she asked me, and then: "I wonder if
you are going to stay long? All summer? Well, that's clever! I do hope
you will come out to the Light to see me; young folks 'most always like
my place. Most likely your friends will fetch you."

"Do you know the Brandon house?" asked Kate.

"Well as I do the meeting-house. There! I wonder I didn't know from the
beginning, but I have been a trying all the way to settle it who you
could be. I'