Among green New England hills stood an ancient house, many-gabled,mossy-roofed, and quaintly built, but picturesque and pleasant to theeye; for a brook ran babbling through the orchard that encompassed itabout, a garden-plat stretched upward to the whispering birches on theslope, and patriarchal elms stood sentinel upon the lawn, as they hadstood almost a century ago, when the Revolution rolled that way andfound them young.
One summer morning, when the air was full of country sounds, of mowersin the meadow, black-birds by the brook, and the low of kine upon thehill-side, the old house wore its cheeriest aspect, and a certainhumble history began.
"Nan!"
"Yes, Di."
And a head, brown-locked, blue-eyed, soft-featured, looked in at theopen door in answer to the call.
"Just bring me the third volume of 'Wilhelm Meister,' there's a dear.It's hardly worth while to rouse such a restless ghost as I, when I'monce fairly laid."
As she spoke, Di PUlled up her black braids, thumped the pillow of thecouch where she was lying, and with eager eyes went down the last pageof her book.
"Nan!"
"Yes, Laura," replied the girl, coming back with the third volume forthe literary cormorant, who took it with a nod, still too content uponthe "Confessions of a Fair Saint" to remember the failings of a certainplain sinner.
"Don't forget the Italian cream for dinner. I depend upon it; for it'sthe only thing fit for me this hot weather."
And Laura, the cool blonde, disposed the folds of her white gown moregracefully about her, and touched up the eyebrow of the Minerva she wasdrawing.
"Little daughter!"
"Yes, father."
"Let me have plenty of clean collars in my bag, for I must go at once;and some of you bring me a glass of cider in about an hour;—I shall bein the lower garden."
The old man went away into his imaginary paradise, and Nan into thatdomestic purgatory on a summer day,—the kitchen. There were vinesabout the windows, sunshine on the floor, and order everywhere; but itwas haunted by a cooking-stove, that family altar whence such variedincense rises to appease the appetite of household gods, before whichsuch dire incantations are pronounced to ease the wrath and woe of thepriestess of the fire, and about which often linger saddest memories ofwasted temper, time, and toil.
Nan was tired, having risen with the birds,—hurried, having many caresthose happy little housewives never know,—and disappointed in a hopethat hourly "dwindled, peaked, and pined." She was too young to makethe anxious lines upon her forehead seem at home there, too patient tobe burdened with the labor others should