Year: 1873

Are you going to Saratoga, Nina?"


"No"


ITO Long Branch, them"


"No."


"To the White Hills?"


"No."


"Then where are you going?" was the
general cry.


81 am going to disappear" answered Miss
curious friends could get from her, let them
try as they would. At every fresh surmise
she shook her head and smiled mysteriously.
" l am going to disappear" she persisted.


Miss Lascellcs kept her word. She did
disappear, and nobody could find whittier.
In fact, there was no one to find out from, no
one to whom she was in the least degree re-
sponsible for her comings and goings. An
orphan without near relatives-an heiress,
moreover-she was entire mistress of her.
self and had she proposed to go othe moon,
so far as this earthly planet is concerned
there would have been nothing to hinder.
But for certain atmospheric difficulties be-
ing in the way of such tour, her acquaint-
ance would have been inclined to suspect
it was the very one she was making at pres
ent-that ut-of-the-way sort of thing exact
ly tallying with her oddity for, by common
consent, Nina Lascelles was dubbed "odd :"
bright sensible, attractive, certainly, but for
all that with an odd streak about her.


But where had Miss Lascelles gone
Not quite as far as the moon, and yet to
region almost as remote from the sphere
of her dear FIVE hundred friends. One day
there had chanced to present itself to her
recollection the picture of a certain weather.
beaten. gambrel-roofed house up among the
rocks and hills of one of the Northern States,
where she had passed the happiest summer
of her life. Miss Lascelles thought she
would like to try if that old time could not
be brought back again. To be sure, she
had been only twelve then, and the tastes
of twelve and twenty Lone are apt to be
somewhat different; but at least it would
be novelty. She was tired and over-tired
of the prescribed pleasure tread mill, every
step of which she knew so YEARLY we'll
Briefly, she had set her heart on the expert
ment; and when this young lady set her
her heart on doing any thiag, it was very
likely to be done.


Besides, it was not simply her own incli-
nation she consulted in this choice. Among
her poor people-for poor people were one
of Miss Lascelles' oddities-were two
young EnglIsh orphans, brother and sis
ter, whom she had discovered one day in a
crowded unwholesome city back lane,
where they were breathing distilled dirt,
and cheating their young, growing hungry
muscles with sort of refuse which it was
the highest strain of courtesy to call food.
No wonder if their poor cheeks became pal
er every day, and that the boys strength
was hardly sufficient to earn the pittance
which Just kept the life in his sister and
himself These children were special favor
ties with Miss Lascelles, whether because
of their singular attachment to one another,
or because they were orphans with no ties
OF kindred even as she herself was; and
marking their increasing delicacy,i t occurred
to her that to take them out of the close
heat of city summer into the free air and
life in which she herself had once thriven
would be no bad way of spending the months
usually allotted to the busy idleness Of water
ing place existence.


So, with her two young proteges, Miss
Lascelles disappeared, to come to the sur
face again in the little town Of Stonebor-
ough The old gray house and the scatter
lDg FllluJt tppcstf Cu W nave uu0cISUuc dc
little change as the eternal mountains them
selves that closed around.


Is this place really in the world, won
der?" said Miss Lascelles to herself, with a
smile, surveying it. 1t seems to be out
of Times way, at any rate. l don't believe
a creature has been born or died in it since
/ was here. could almost fancy myself
still the slip of May-pole was then, with
eyes several sizes too large for my face,
and skin the color Of the butter Mrs.
Hutchins is working there"


Miss Lascelles laughed again at the re-
collection. 1t was only a recollection,
and she could afford to laugh at it now, for
there was certainly no ter-color in the
glow on the clear cheek, and the full yet
firm and free figure suggested any thing but
a May-pole. Good MIS- Hutchins, herself
as little changed as all the rest, would have
been astonished to learn that this handsome
Young woman was no other than the sallow
little heiress she had shaken her head over


la,L.f,lIx- nipa voarS before Such An