pleasure, perhaps, of drinking 'your very good health' some bright
morning before breakfast. Which is your favorite spring?"

"I do not know. I will decide after I have learned your choice."

"That's an amiable weakness. I think I shall like Saratoga. The
great hotels contain all one wishes for amusement. Then everything
about town is so nice, pretty, and sociable. The shops, also,
are fine. Too often we have spent our summers in places that were
a trifle dreary. Mountains oppress me with a sense of littleness,
and their wildness frightens me. The ocean is worse still. The
moment I am alone with it, such a lonely, desolate feeling creeps
over me--oh, I can't tell you! I fear you think I am silly and
frivolous. You think I ought to be inspired by the shaggy mountains
and wild waves and all that. Well, you may think so--I won't
tell fibs. I don't think mother is frivolous, and she feels as I
do. We are from the South, and like things that are warm, bright,
and sociable. The ocean always seemed to me so large and cold and
pitiless--to care so little for those in its power."

"In that respect it's like the world, or rather the people in it--"

"Oh, no, no!" she interrupted eagerly; "it is to the world of
people I am glad to escape from these solitudes of nature. As I
said, the latter, with their vastness, power, and, worse than all,
their indifference, oppress me, and make me shiver with a vague
dread. I once saw a ship beaten to pieces by the waves in a storm.
It was on the coast near where we were spending the summer. Some
of the people on the vessel were drowned, and their cries ring in
my ears to this day. Oh, it was piteous to see them reaching out