But Uncle Blair could do at least one thing surpassingly well.
He could write letters. Such letters! By contrast, Felix and I
were secretly ashamed of father's epistles. Father could talk
well but, as Felix said, he couldn't write worth a cent. The
letters we had received from him since his arrival in Rio de
Janeiro were mere scrawls, telling us to be good boys and not
trouble Aunt Janet, incidentally adding that he was well and
lonesome. Felix and I were always glad to get his letters, but
we never read them aloud to an admiring circle in the orchard.

Uncle Blair was spending the summer in Switzerland; and the
letter the Story Girl read to us, among the fair, frail White
Ladies of the Walk, where the west wind came now with a sigh, and
again with a rush, and then brushed our faces as softly as the
down of a thistle, was full of the glamour of mountain-rimmed
lakes, and purple chalets, and "snowy summits old in story." We
climbed Mount Blanc, saw the Jungfrau soaring into cloudland, and
walked among the gloomy pillars of Bonnivard's prison. Finally,
the Story Girl told us the tale of the Prisoner of Chillon, in
words that were Byron's, but in a voice that was all her own.

"It must be splendid to go to Europe," sighed Cecily longingly.

"I am going some day," said the Story Girl airily.

We looked at her with a slightly incredulous awe. To us, in
those years, Europe seemed almost as remote and unreachable as
the moon. It was hard to believe that one of US should ever go
there. But Aunt Julia had gone--and SHE had been brought up in
Carlisle on this very farm. So it was possible that the Story