to row pretty little boats on, and
secondly, to propagate fish. The family were of an old stock, but a
newly rich--a class who like much to enjoy their money, and better
still, to show it.

On this cloudless summer morn, perfect as weather goes, so perfect
that one might look upon it as a Providential complicity in the
booming of the Grange picnic, a gracious provision of nature to suit
one special occasion, the approaches to the Bigge House presented a
stirring scene. Carriages, buggies, and wagons, vehicles of every
description, and vehicles nondescript, lined the roadways in every
direction. Servants were rushing hither and thither, fresh arrivals
coming every few moments to swell the throng, voices calling to each
other in joyous recognition, fair hands waving _au revoirs_, as they
dashed by, without stopping, on their way to the scene of the day's
festivities. A pleasurable sense of expectation brightened every face,
a buoyant sense of exhilaration quickened every heart, and high above
the heads of all, a brilliant sun, regnant on a field of blue, lighted
up the long sloping hills and broad green valleys. Mell looked about
her wonderingly. Who were all these people, and how many of them would
she know before the day was done?

Miss Josey had left her holding the reins while she ran in for a cargo
of bundles. It was not at all necessary, except in Miss Josey's
imagination. Her well-groomed little nag was alive, it is true, but
some live things creep, and Aristophanes--called Top,--was one of
them. He never thought of starting anywhere as long as he could stand
still. In this respect, he differed from his mistress, who never
stayed anywhere, as long as she could find enough news to keep going.

"Hold him tight, Mell," had been Miss Josey's injunction when she left
Mell alone with Top.

At another time this arrangement would have greatly disappointed Mell.
Her whole being had clamored to get inside the Bigge House, and,
behold! here she sat along with Top outside the sacred precincts. But,
somehow, her heart beat so high with rainbow-tinted fancies, she was
altogether unconscious of anything amiss in the situation. If not
within the very courts of the wonderful palace, the very penetralia of
the Penates, she was very near the goal; nearer than she had ever been
before. She could almost look in--she could almost see the shining
garments and gloriously bright faces of the beings she envied, the
beings who lived th