Nor do we grieve for them as we did. Coming home
from Pigeon Cove in October with those nice Wadsworth
people, we fell to talking as to the why and wherefore of
the summer life we had led. How was it that it was so
charming? And why were we a little loath to come back to
more comfortable surroundings? "I hate the school," said
George Wadsworth. "I hate the making calls," said his
mother. "I hate the office hour," said her poor husband;
"if there were only a dozen I would not mind, but
seventeen hundred thousand in sixty minutes is too many."
So that led to asking how many of us there had been at
Pigeon Cove. The children counted up all the six
families,--the Haliburtons, the Wadsworths, the
Pontefracts, the Midges, the Hayeses, and the Inghams,
and the two good-natured girls, thirty-seven in all,--and
the two babies born this summer. "Really," said Mrs.
Wadsworth, "I have not spoken to a human being besides
these since June; and what is more, Mrs. Ingham, I have
not wanted to. We have really lived in a little world of
our own."

"World of our own!" Polly fairly jumped from her
seat, to Mrs. Wadsworth's wonder. So we had--lived in a
world of our own. Polly reads no newspaper since the
"Sandemanian" was merged. She has a letter or two tumble
in sometimes, but not many; and the truth was that she
had been more secluded from General Grant and Mr.
Gladstone and the Khedive, and the rest of the
important people, than had Brannan or Ross or any of
them!