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With a great sweep of her arm, she brushed aside a portiere
and disappeared. 66

"Sh! sh!" he whispered excitedly, "not a vordt! Not a vordt!
Mein Gott! but it is marvellous." 74

"What are you doing here, little girl?" he demanded sternly. 118

Caroline danced, bowing and posturing in a bewitched
abandon, around the tinkling, glistening fountain. 274

Across the court was a lighted room with a long French
window, and in the center of this window there sat in a high,
carved chair a very old woman. 282

Caroline was not a hundred yards away, sheltering under a
heavy arbor vitae, flat on her stomach. 299

WHILE CAROLINE WAS GROWING

* * * * *

I

AN IDYL OF THE ROAD

Caroline rocked herself back and forth from her waist, defying the
uncompromisingly straight chair which inclosed her portly little
person.

"Bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_
by _Mass'joosetts_; bounded 'n th' _north_ by _Mass'joosetts_," she
intoned in a monotonous chant. But her eyes were not upon the map;
like those of the gentleman in the poem, they were with her heart,
and that was far away.

Out of the window the spring was coming on, in waves of tree-bloom
and bright grass; the birds bickered sweetly in the sun-patches;
everything was reaching on tiptoe for the delicious thrill of
May--and she was bounding Connecticut! It was idiotic. What was a
knowledge of the uninteresting limits of her native State compared
to that soft fresh wind on her cheek, that indescribable odor of
brown earth?

Two fat birds descended with a twitter into a crystal rain-pool, and
bathed, with splashes of spray; Caroline's feet itched in her ribbed
stockings. A soiled and freckled boy, bare from the knees, whistled
by the window, jangling a can of bait, his pole balanced prettily on
one ragged shoulder. As he reached the puddle, a pure inconsequence
of good feeling seized him, and he splashed deliberately in it,
grinning around him. Caroline mechanically bent and unbuttoned the
top button of her stout boots. He caught her eye.

"Where you going?" she called through the glass.

"Oh, I d'no--anywheres, I guess!" he answered invitingly. "Want
to come?"

"I can't. I have to go to school," she said short