all her subsequent enjoyment, that summer still dwelt in her memory as
the halcyon period of her life, and it was with the country she
associated it. Every year she had longed for July, for then her father
would break away from business for a couple of months and take them to
a place of resort. But the fashionable watering-places were not at all
to her taste as compared with that old farmhouse, and whenever it was
possible she would wander off and make "disreputable acquaintances,"
as Mrs. Allen termed them, among the farmers' and laborers' families
in the vicinity of the hotel. But by this means she often obtained a
basket of fruit or bunch of flowers that the others were glad to share
in.

In accordance with her practical nature she asked questions as to the
habits, growth, and culture of trees and fruits, so that few city
girls situated as she had been knew as much about the products of the
garden. She had also haunted conservatories and green-houses as much
as her sisters had frequented the costly Broadway temples of fashion,
where counters are the altars to which the women of the city bring
their daily offerings; and as we have seen, a fruit store was a place
of delight to her.

The thought that she could now raise without limit fruit, flowers, and
vegetables on her own place was some compensation even for the trouble
they had passed through and the change in their fortunes.

Moreover she knew that because of their poverty she would have to
secure from her ground substantial returns, and that her gardening
must be no amateur trifling, but earnest work. Therefore, having found
a seat in the saloon of the boat, she drew out of her leather bag one
of her garden-books and some agricultural papers, and commenced