So our summer's housekeeping began in most pleasant fashion. It was just
at sunset, and Ann's and Maggie's presence made the house seem familiar
at once. Maggie had been unpacking for us, and there was a delicious
supper ready for the hungry girls. Later in the evening we went down to
the shore, which was not very far away; the fresh sea-air was welcome
after the dusty day, and it seemed so quiet and pleasant in Deephaven.




_The Brandon House and the Lighthouse_


I do not know that the Brandon house is really very remarkable, but I
never have been in one that interested me in the same way. Kate used to
recount to select audiences at school some of her experiences with her
Aunt Katharine, and it was popularly believed that she once carried down
some indestructible picture-books when they were first in fashion, and
the old lady basted them for her to hem round the edges at the rate of
two a day. It may have been fabulous. It was impossible to imagine any
children in the old place; everything was for grown people; even the
stair-railing was too high to slide down on. The chairs looked as if
they had been put, at the furnishing of the house, in their places, and
there they meant to remain. The carpets were particularly interesting,
and I remember Kate's pointing out to me one day a great square figure
in one, and telling me she used to keep house there with her dolls for
lack of a better play-house, and if one of them chanced to fall outside
the boundary stripe, it was immediately put to bed with a cold. It is a
house with great possibilities; it might easily be made charming. There