ed between these two, and the frank
expression of their delight in meeting again. Here was a friendship
without any reserve, or any rueful misunderstandings, or necessity for
explanations. Irene's eyes followed them with a wistful look as they
went off together round the piazza and through the parlors, the girl
playing the part of the hostess, and inducting him into the mild gayeties
of the place.

The height of the season was over, she said; there had been tableaux and
charades, and broom-drills, and readings and charity concerts. Now the
season was on the sentimental wane; every night the rooms were full of
whist-players, and the days were occupied in quiet strolling over the
hills, and excursions to Cooperstown and Cherry Valley and "points of
view," and visits to the fields to see the hop-pickers at work. If there
were a little larking about the piazzas in the evening, and a group here
and there pretending to be merry over tall glasses with ice and straws in
them, and lingering good-nights at the stairways, why should the aged and
rheumatic make a note of it? Did they not also once prefer the dance to
hobbling to the spring, and the taste of ginger to sulphur?

Of course the raison d'etre of being here is the sulphur spring. There
is no doubt of its efficacy. I suppose it is as unpleasant as any in the
country. Everybody smells it, and a great many drink it. The artist
said that after using it a week the blind walk, the lame see, and the
dumb swear. It renews youth, and although the analyzer does not say that
it is a "love philter," the statistics kept by the colored autocrat who
ladles out the fluid show that there are made as many engagements at
Richfield as at any other summer fair in the country.

There is not much to chronicle in the peaceful flow of domestic life,
and, truth to say, the charm of Richfield is largely in its restfulness.
Those who go there year after year converse a great deal about their
liking for it, and think the time well spent in persuading new arrivals
to take certain walks and drives. It was impressed upon King that he
must upon no account omit a visit to Rum Hill, from the summit of which
is had a noble prospect, including the Adirondack Mountains. He tried
this with a walking party, was driven back when near the summit by a
thunder, storm, which offered a series of grand pictures in the sky and
on the hills, and took refuge in a farmhouse which was occupied by a band
of hop-pickers.