th it has made to ours is a wide one. The boys swarm here
all hours of the day, to Norman's delight, the summer campers make our
garden the Mecca of their morning pilgrimages, and the cheerful front we
put up to Fate seems to be the magnet that draws them back again in the
afternoons.

"Really, our shady front porch reminds me sometimes of a popular Summer
Resort piazza, it is so gay and chatty. The ladies of the camp come over
nearly every day and bring their sewing and fancy work, and Huldah and I
serve tea. It would do you good to see how mamma enjoys Mrs. Levering
and Mrs. Seldon. They're like the friends she used to have back in
Plainsville, and this is the first really good social time she has had
since we left there.

"Professor Levering and Professor Seldon seem to find Jack so
congenial. They talk to him by the hour on the scientific subjects he
loves. It is a Godsend to him to have such a diversion. Mrs. Levering
said to me this morning that he is a daily wonder to them all, and a
rebuke as well. 'We think _we_ have troubles,' she said, 'until we come
over here. Then you make them seem so insignificant that we are ashamed
to label them troubles. Oh, you Wares; I never saw such a family! You
fairly radiate cheerfulness. I wish you'd tell me how you do it.'

"I told her I supposed it was because we were all such copy-cats. First
we imitated the old Vicar of Wakefield so many years that it gave us a
cheerful bent of mind, and lately we'd taken the story of Aldebaran to
heart and were imitating him and the other Jester. She said, 'Commend me
to copy-cats. I'm glad I discovered the species.'

"I am telling you all this in order that you may see that we have
managed to keep inflexible to the extent of impressing our neighbours,
at least, and there is no need for you to worry about us any more. I
hope you will accept Eugenia's invitation and spend that two weeks at
the sea-shore in the idlest, most care-free way you can think of, and
not give one anxious thought to us. True, our day of great things is
over. We no longer lay large plans, and sweep the heavens with a
telescope, looking for pleasure on a large scale, among the stars. But
it is wonderful how many little things we find now that we used to let
slip unheeded, since we've gone to looking for them with a microscope."

Two days later another letter was sent post-haste to Joyce, written in a
hurried scrawl with a pencil, clearly showing Mary's agitation.