over Red Gulch. Miss Mary grew fond of walking in the sedate and
proper woods. Perhaps she believed, with Mrs. Stidger, that the
balsamic odors of the firs "did her chest good," for certainly her
slight cough was less frequent and her step was firmer; perhaps she
had learned the unending lesson which the patient pines are never
weary of repeating to heedful or listless ears. And so one day she
planned a picnic on Buckeye Hill, and took the children with her. Away
from the dusty road, the straggling shanties, the yellow ditches, the
clamor of restless engines, the cheap finery of shop-windows, the
deeper glitter of paint and colored glass, and the thin veneering
which barbarism takes upon itself in such localities, what infinite
relief was theirs! The last heap of ragged rock and clay passed, the
last unsightly chasm crossed,--how the waiting woods opened their long
files to receive them! How the children--perhaps because they had not
yet grown quite away from the breast of the bounteous Mother--threw
themselves face downward on her brown bosom with uncouth caresses,
filling the air with their laughter; and how Miss Mary herself--
felinely fastidious and intrenched as she was in the purity of
spotless skirts, collar, and cuffs--forgot all, and ran like a crested
quail at the head of her brood, until, romping, laughing, and
panting, with a loosened braid of brown hair, a hat hanging by a
knotted ribbon from her throat, she came suddenly and violently, in
the heart of the forest, upon the luckless Sandy!

The explanations, apologies, and not overwise conversation that ensued
need not be indicated here. It would seem, however, that Miss Mary had
already established some acquaintance with this ex-drunkard. Enough
that he was soon accepted as one of the party; that the children, with
that quick intelligence which Providence gives the helpless,
recognized a friend, and played with his blond beard and long silken