er-Cap. And be sure you get the 'little red'!"

"It'll be all the worse for Graywacke, if we're kept in and sent off
early," she continued, _sotto voce_, to her companions, as they turned
away. "My! what _has_ that boy got?"

CHAPTER VIII.

SIXTEEN AND SIXTY.

After all this, I wonder if you wouldn't just like to look in at Miss
Craydocke's room with me, who can give you a pass anywhere within the
geography of my story?

She came in here "with the lath and plaster," as Sin Saxon had said. She
had gathered little comforts and embellishments about her from summer to
summer, until the room had a home-cheeriness, and even a look of luxury,
contrasted with the bare dormitories around it. Over the straw matting,
that soon grows shabby in a hotel, she had laid a large, nicely-bound
square of soft, green carpet, in a little mossy pattern, that covered
the middle of the floor, and was held tidily in place by a foot of the
bedstead and two forward ones each of the table and washstand. On this
little green stood her Shaker rocking-chair and a round white-pine
light-stand with her work-basket and a few books. Against the wall hung
some white-pine shelves with more books,--quite a little circulating
library they were for invalids and read-out people, who came to the
mountains, like foolish virgins, with scant supply of the oil of
literature for the feeding of their brain-lamps. Besides these, there
were engravings and photographs in _passe-partout_ frames, that
journeyed with her safely in the bottoms of her trunks. Also, the wall
itself had been papered, at her own cost and providing, with a pretty
pale-green hanging; and there were striped muslin curtains to the
window, over which were caught the sprays of some light, wandering vine
that sprung from a low-suspended terra-cotta vase between.

She had everything pretty about her, this old Miss Craydocke. How many
people do, that have not a bit of outward prettiness themselves! Not one
cubit to the stature, not one hair white or black, can they add or
change; and around them grow the lilies in the glory of Solomon, and a
frosted leaf or a mossy twig, that they can pick up from under their
feet and bring home from the commonest walk, comes in with them, bearing
a brightness and a grace that seems sometimes almost like a satire! But
in the midst grows silently the century-plant of the soul, absorbing to
itself hourly that which feeds the beauty of the lily and the radianc