The side window looked out into a shady little garden-spot, in the
front corner of which grew a grand old elm, which reached around
with beneficent, beautiful branches, and screened also a part of the
street aspect. Seen from within, and from under these great, green,
swaying limbs,--the same here in the village as out in free field or
forest,--the street itself seemed less dusty, less common, less
impossible to pause upon for anything but to buy bread, or mend a
wheel, or get a horse shod.

"How different it is, in behind!" said Sylvie, speaking out
involuntarily.

Ray shot a quick look at her from her bright dark eyes.

"I suppose it is,--almost everywheres," she answered. "I've got
turned round so, sometimes, with people and places, until they never
seemed the same again."

If Ray had not said "everywheres," Sylvie would not have been
reminded; but that word sent her, in recollection, out to the
house-front and the shop-sign again. Ray knew better; she was a
good scholar, but she heard her mother and others like her talk
vernacular every day. It was a wonder she shaded off from it as
delicately as she did.

Ray Ingraham, or Rachel,--for that was her name, and her sister's
was Dorothy, though these had been shortened into two as charming,
pet little appellatives as could have been devised by the most
elegant intention,--was a pretty girl, with her long-lashed,