A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life.
te in her arrangements for her daughter. I believe that, with this exception, she brought up her fa
. There was never any course pursued with sole calculation as to its effect on the children. Family discussion and deliberation was seldom with closed doors. Questions that came up were considered as they came; and the young members of the household perceived as soon as their elders the "reasons why" of most decisions. They were part and parcel of the whole régime. They learned politeness
of Leslie, and intended to guard against a premature delight and eagerness, and so perhaps an ultimate disappointment for that young la
on to tea. When she saw what it really was, her dar
said Mrs. Goldthwaite, "but there are things to be co
slie, the light in her
aite's tone was only half, and very gently, objecting; there was an inflection of ready self-relinquishm
mother's heart had been with her from the beginning, and grown peopl
th now to vacation,"
think Mr. Way
ie, after a pause, "that he wou
it. Mrs. Goldthwaite was thinking it over in her motherly mind, and in the mind of Leslie thought and hop
-was about to take them, under her care, to the mountains for the summer, and she kindly proposed joining Leslie Goldthwa
zetteer, the by-nooks of travel, and wondering already if she should ever really journey otherwise. You can t
Goldthwaite. "Mrs. Linceford is a gay, extravagant woman, and the Haddens' ideas
r, truly," said Leslie, with a little hopeful flutter of
d foreseen. He was a teacher who did not imagine all possible educational advantage to be shut up within the four walls of his or any other schoolroom. "She is just the gir
over on Saturday afternoon, just as Leslie had nearly put the last things into her trunk,-a new trunk, quite her own, with her initials in black paint upon the russet leathe
w in my life!" cried Jeannie Hadden, seizing upon it instantly as she ente
black, and a narrower one following it above and below, easing the contrast and blending the colors. The jacket, or rather shirt, finished at the waist with a bit of a polka frill, was a soft flannel, o
so,-last summer's hat, a plain black straw, with a slight brim, and ornamented only with
pping; and in her hand she carried a parcel in white paper. I was going to say a round parcel, which it would have been but for som
-leaf-for yo
" cried the Haddens,
el and me," said Leslie, coloring a little and laughing, w
g turban, but one of those that slope with a little graceful downward droop upon the brow,-bound with a pheasant's breast, the wing shooting
oving thanks, plainer than many words. "Only you're a kind of a sarpent yourself after all, I'm afraid, with your beguilements. I wonder if you thou
trifling words conveyed a real, earnest confidenc
nt of demur. "We're all pheasants. Our new hats are pheasants, t
den pheasant, on brown straw, and ours are purple
inks it does, she may just give me that black and white plover of he
nie's darker locks and brilliant bloom; and there was a wonderful bright mingling of color between the go
eautiful if she could? This wish, and the thought and effort it would induce, were likely to be her great temptation. Passably pretty girls, who may, with care, make themselves often more than p
he getting up and getting off to-morrow; and one hates so to take out fresh sleeves and collars and pocket-handkerchiefs, and
were rather pert and coquettish for the sanctuary. Nevertheless they met the Haddens in the porch, in the glory of their purple pheasant plumes, whereof the
seems to creep under and vibrate all things with a strange, vital thrill, overswept their trivial
Jeannie Had
e. The great ne
e says sometimes," whispered Elino
ch black silk, and real lace shawl, and delicate, costly bonnet; and the perfectly gloved hand that upheld a bit of extravagance in Valenci
had lifted her own head and unclosed her eyes in a self-indignant honesty, when she found on what her secret thoughts were running. Were other people so m
ngs as they came, as these girls did, or seemed to do?-be glad of her pretty things, her pretty looks even, h
re arts and human ingenuities for, and the things given to work with? All this grave weighing of a great moral question was in the min
drab, or whatever else might be most unbecoming, and be fiercely severe, mortifying the flesh. She got over that-her young nature reacting-as they all walked up the street together, while the sun shone down smilingly upon the world in Sunday best, and the flowers were gay in the door-yards, and Miss Milliken's shop was reverential with the green shutters before the windows that had been gorgeous yesterday with bright ribbons and fresh fashions; and there was something thankful in her feeling of the pleasantness that was about her, and a certainty that she should only grow morose if she took
done to-day in the world; one thing for which the sun rose, and wheeled himself toward that point in the heavens which would make eight o'clock down below. Of all the ships that might sail this day out of harbors, or the trains that might steam out of cities across States, they recked nothing but of this that was to take them toward the hills. There were unfortunates, doubtless, bound elsewhere, by peremptory necessity; there were people who were going nowhere but about their daily work and errands; all these were simply to be pitied, or wondered at, as to how they could feel not to be going up
ng farmers, who saw that the four ladies wished to be seated together. Their hand-bags were hung up, their rolls of shawls disposed beneath their feet, and Mrs. Linceford had taken out her novel. The Haddens had each a book also in her bag, to be perfectly according to rule in their equipment; but they were not old travelers enough to care to begin upon th
ing, first, that she had not a tooth in her head, and also that she made repeated anxious requests of the conductor, catching him by the coat-skirts as he passed, to "let her know in season when they began to get into Bartley;" who asked, confidentially, of her next neighbor, a well-dressed elderly gentleman, if "he didn't think it was about as cheap comin' by the cars as it would ha' ben to hire a passage any other way?" and innocently endured
capacity for house thrift and hearth comfort,-who wore a gray straw bonnet, clean and neat as if it had not lasted for six years at least, which its fashion evidenced, and which, having a bright green tuft of artifici
ng of graceful fashions; who had always too much to do to think of elegance in doing? Perhaps that was just it; they had always something to do, something outside of themselves,-in th
upon them? that an instinct of pity and courtesy would even turn every casual glance away? There was a strange, sorrowful pleading in the one expressive side of the man's countenance, and a singularly untoward incident presently called it forth, and made it almost ludicrously pitiful. A bustling fellow entered at a way-station, his arms full of
d him. The astonishment, the intuitive repulsion, the consciousness of what he had done, betokened by the instant look of the one man, and the helpless, mute "How could you?" that seemed spoken i
right had she to wish to be-pretty and pleasant to look at, when there were such utter lifelong loss and disfigurement in the world for others? Why should it not as well happen to her? And how did the world seem to such a
and Mrs. Linceford, not much entertained with her novel, held it half closed over her finger, drew her brown veil closely, and sat with her eyes shut, compensating herself with a doz