you, too, would like to go everywhere and see
everything, Miss Thorne?" said Evert Winthrop, addressing the daughter.
"I assure you it's dull work."

"Naturally--after one has had it all." She spoke without again turning
her eyes towards him.

"We are kept here by circumstances," observed Mrs. Thorne, smoothing the
folds of her black gown with her little withered hand. "I do not know
whether circumstances will ever release us--I do not know. But we are
not unhappy meanwhile. We have the old house, with its many
associations; we have our duties and occupations; and if not frequent
amusement, we have our home life, our few dear friends, and our
affection for each other."

"All of them crowned by this same blue sky which Mr. Winthrop admires so
much," added Garda.

"I see that you will always hold me up to ridicule on account of that
speech," said Winthrop. "You are simply tired of blue. As a contrast you
would welcome, I dare say, the dreariest gray clouds of the New England
coast, and our east wind driving in from the sea."

"I should welcome snow," answered Garda, slowly; "all the country
covered with snow, lying white and dead--that is what I wish to see. I
want to walk on a frozen lake with ice, real ice over deep water, under
my feet. I want to breathe freezing air, and know how it feels. I want
to see trees without any leaves on them; and a snow-storm when the
flakes are very big and soft like feathers; and long icicles hanging
from roofs; and then, to hear the wind whistle round the house, and be
glad to draw the curtains and bring my chair close to a great roaring
fire. Think of that--to be _glad_ to come close to a great roaring
fire!"

"I have described these things to my daughter," said Mrs. Thorne,
explaining these wintry aspirations to their guest in her careful little
way. "My home before my marriage was in the northern part of New
England, and these pictures from my youth have been Garda's fairy
tales."

"Then you are not English?" said Winthrop. He knew perfectly that she
was not, but he wished to hear the definite little abstract of family
history which, in answer to his question, he thought she would feel
herself called upon to bestow. He was not mistaken.

"My husband was English--that is, of English descent," she
explained--"and I do not wonder that you should have thought me English
also, for I have imbibed the family air so long that I have ended by
really becoming one of them. We Thornes