thing for the elements when they got into Aunt Jane's diary. By
noon the sun came out as clear and sultry as if there had never
been a cloud, the northeast wind died away, the bay was
motionless, the first locust of the summer shrilled from the
elms, and the robins seemed to be serving up butterflies hot
for their insatiable second brood, while nothing seemed
desirable for a human luncheon except ice-cream and fans. In
the afternoon the southwest wind came up the bay, with its line
of dark-blue ripple and its delicious coolness; while the hue
of the water grew more and more intense, till we seemed to be
living in the heart of a sapphire.

The household sat beneath the large western doorway of the old
Maxwell House,--he rear door, which looks on the water. The
house had just been reoccupied by my Aunt Jane, whose
great-grandfather had built it, though it had for several
generations been out of the family. I know no finer specimen of
those large colonial dwellings in which the genius of Sir
Christopher Wren bequeathed traditions of stateliness to our
democratic days. Its central hall has a carved archway; most
of the rooms have painted tiles and are wainscoted to the
ceiling; the sashes are red-cedar, the great staircase
mahogany; there are pilasters with delicate Corinthian
capitals; there are cherubs' heads and wings that go astray and
lose themselves in closets and behind glass doors; there are
curling acanthus-leaves that cluster over shelves and ledges,
and there are those graceful shell-patterns which one often
sees on old furniture, but rarely in houses. The high front
door still retains its Ionic cornice; and the western entrance,
looking on the bay, is surmounted by carved fruit and flowers,