t and benevolent elements of her own nature (she had plenty of
them, but they were sometimes like badly-trained troops, and needed a
_recall_),--sat down and wrote a letter to Richard, giving him a brief
account of what had occurred, abusing him playfully for going off
without informing her of his intention, and ordering him to West Falls
immediately, in such terms as a commander-in-chief might have employed
towards a recruiting sergeant. That done, and the letter despatched, she
felt partially relieved.

But what a fool she had made of herself--she thought--by leaving West
Falls so soon! Neither her mother nor herself was yet ready to leave for
Newport (she much less than her mother, until certain half-finished
arrangements, in which Mr. Tom Leslie bore a part, were more
satisfactorily settled); the city was growing dull as well as hot, and
most of the "people one cares for," flitting to one or another of the
sea-shore or mountain resorts; and there were the pigs and chickens at
Aunt Betsey's all lying neglected. Joe Harris was nearer to being
_ennuyee_--absolutely bored, for the next hour, than she had before been
for a twelvemonth.

There is an old adage that some of us may have read in the primer (or
was it the hymn-book?) that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle
hands to do." Josephine's late life had been sufficiently exciting to
make her undeniably restless; and it was while ruminating upon the
misery of being too quietly happy, that she remembered her rencontre
with Emily Owen, at Wallack's, the magnificently bearish manner in which
Judge Owen had lugged his daughter out from the theatre, and the promise
she had made the mortified and abashed girl that she would run up and
call upon her some day. Why not now? Not much sooner thought of than
done; and in less than an hour thereafter she was ringing at the door of
Judge Owen's house near the Harlem River, having endured the smashing of
toes and disorder of dresses incident to a ride by car on a hot
afternoon when half the city was rushing to the Central Park and the
cool places over in Westchester.

She had better fortune, here, than she had experienced at the
Crawfords'. Emily was at home, sewing by the open window in her little
chamber, while by the other window of the same room showed the tall
figure and placid face of Aunt Martha. The meeting between the two
school-mates was very warm and cordial, and accompanied by those
embraces which, when they occ