here?"

"Goodness! Why not? The last few summers we have always spent together."

"She is with you now, then?"

"Oh, yes. She is the least changed of all. I didn't mean to tell, but
keep her as a surprise. Of course, you will be a surprise to
everybody.--There, run along, children; we'll follow.--Yes, won't it be
delightful, Roger? We can all play at youth again."

"Like skeletons in some Dance of Death!" he exclaimed. "We shall be
hideous in each other's sight."

"McLean, I am a bride," said his wife, not heeding the late misanthropy;
"Helen is a girl; the ghost of the prior Mrs. Purcell shall be
_rediviva_; and Katy there"------

"Wait a bit, Kate," said her cousin.

"Before you have shuffled off mortality for the whole party, sit down
under this hedge,--here is an opportune bench,--and give me accounts
from the day of my departure."

"Dear me, Roger, as if that were possible! The ocean in a tea-cup? Let
me see,--you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn't you? Well,
she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It was odd to
miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once. Mrs.
Laudersdale was ill; I don't know exactly what the trouble was. You know
she had been in such an unusual state of exhilaration all that summer;
and as soon as she left New Hampshire and began the old city-life, she
became oppressed with a speechless melancholy, I believe, so that the
doctors foreboded insanity. She expressed great disinclination to follow
their advice, and her husband finally banished them all. It was a great
care to him; he altered much. McLean surmised that she didn't like to
see him, while she was in this state; for, though he used to surround
her with every luxury, and was always hunting out new appliances, and
raising the heavens for a trifle, he kept himself carefully out of her
sight during the greater part of the winter. I don't know whether she
became insufferably lonely, or whether the melancholy wore off, or she
conquered it, and decided that it was not right to go crazy for nothing,
or what happened. But one cold March evening he set out for his home,
dreary, as usual, he thought; and he found the fire blazing and
reddening the ceiling and curtains, the room all aglow with rich
shadows, and his wife awaiting him, in full toilet, just as superb as
you will see her tonight, just as sweet and cold and impassible and
impenetrable. At least," continued Mrs. McLean, taking breath, "I