vard, and so I came
second-cabin. It wasn't bad. I used to see you across the rail."

"Well!" said Whitwell.

"How very--amusing!" said Mrs. Vostrand. "What a small world it is!" With
these words she fell into a vagary; her daughter recalled her from it
with a slight movement. "Breakfast? How impatient you are, Genevieve!
Well!" She smiled the sweetest parting to Whitwell, and suffered herself
to be led away by Jeff.

"And you're at Harvard? I'm so interested! My own boy will be going there
soon."

"Well, there's no place like Harvard," said Jeff. "I'm in my Sophomore
year now."

"Oh, a Sophomore! Fancy!" cried Mrs. Vostrand, as if nothing could give
her more pleasure. "My son is going to prepare at St. Mark's. Did you
prepare there?"

"No, I prepared at Lovewell Academy, over here." Jeff nodded in a
southerly direction.

"Oh, indeed!" said Mrs. Vostrand, as if she knew where Lovewell was, and
instantly recognized the name of the ancient school.

They had reached the dining room, and Jeff pushed the screen-door open
with one hand, and followed the ladies in. He had the effect of welcoming
them like invited guests; he placed the ladies himself at a window, where
he said Mrs. Vostrand would be out of the draughts, and they could have a
good view of Lion's Head.

He leaned over between them, when they were seated, to get sight of the
mountain, and, "There!" he said. "That cloud's gone at last." Then, as if
it would be modester in the proprietor of the view to leave them to their
flattering raptures in it, he moved away and stood talking a moment with
Cynthia Whitwell near the door of the serving-room. He talked gayly, with
many tosses of the head and turns about, while she listened with a vague
smile, motionlessly.

"She's very pretty," said Miss Vostrand to her mother.

"Yes. The New England type," murmured the mother.

"They all have the same look, a good deal," said the girl, glancing over
the room where the waitresses stood ranged against the wall with their
hands folded at their waists. "They have better faces than figures, but
she is beautiful every way. Do you suppose they are all schoolteachers?
They look intellectual. Or is it their glasses?"

"I don't know," said the mother. "They used to be; but things change here
so rapidly it may all be different. Do you like it?"

"I think it's charming here," said the younger lady, evasively.
"Everything is so exquisitely clean. And the food is very good. I