Breakfast is followed by a turn upon the piazza, a little stroll to the
spring, near which delicious wild strawberries nestle in a background
of sweet clover, bright buttercups, and field daisies, or a game of
croquet under the grand old oak-trees

"After the sun has dried the dew."

Then we separate, each to our own room, and our different occupations.

[Illustration: The Spring.]

Ida is very busy now, for she is preparing a volume for publication in
the fall--her dear father's manuscript lectures and letters.

Gabrielle throws herself upon a sofa, and lies there motionless,
absorbed in the fascinating pages of some favorite book; indeed, she is
so quiet that in my periodical fits of tidiness I often seize a print
or bombazine frock, thrown, as I suppose, carelessly upon the bed or
sofa, and only by its weight do I discover that it is animated. Last
year, Gabrielle's favorite site for reading was in the dear old
apple-tree close beside the house; but since she has attained the
dignity of sixteen and train dresses, she has abjured the apple-tree.

Marguerite is translating a volume from the German, _Musikalische
Märchen_, and I divide my time between the piano and occasional
newspaper articles.

But it is already one o'clock and dinner hour. The afternoon passes
much like the morning. We have letters to write, and much reading