seemed to be live things; only we couldn’t tell, you know, what they were, or if they really did know how good it was.  But these are big and real, and you can see their wings, and you know what they mean by it.  I guess it is all the same thing, only some things are little and some are big.  You can see the stars here, too,—­such a sky full.  And that is all the same again.

There are beautiful roofs and walls here.  I guess you would think you were high up!  Harett and I go up from under the cheese-room windows right over the whole house, and we sit on the peak by the chimney.  Harett is Mrs. Dillon’s girl.  Not the girl that lives with her,—­her daughter.  But the girls that live with people are daughters here.  Somebody’s else, I mean.  They are all alike.  I suppose her name is Harriet, but they all call her Harett.  I don’t like to ask her for fear she should think I thought they didn’t know how to pronounce.

I go to school with Harett; up to the West District.  We carry brown bread and butter, and doughnuts, and cheese, and apple-pie in tin pails, for luncheon.  Don’t you remember the brown cupboard in Aunt Oldways’ kitchen, how sagey, and doughnutty, and good it always smelt?  It smells just so now, and everything tastes just the same.

There is a great rock under an oak tree half way up to school, by the side of the road.  We always stop there to rest, coming home.  Three of the girls come the same way as far as that, and we always save some of our dinner to eat up there, and we tell stories.  I tell them about dancing-school, and the time we went to the theatre to see “Cinderella,” and going shopping with mother, and our little tea-parties, and the Dutch dolls we made up in the long front chamber.  O, don’t you remember, Laura?  What different pieces we have got into our remembrances already!  I feel as if I was making patchwork.  Some-time, may-be, I shall tell somebody about living here.  Well, they will be beautiful stories!  Homesworth is an elegant place to live in.  You will see when you come next summer.

There is an apple tree down in the south orchard that bends just like a horse’s back.  Then the branches come up over your head and shade you.  We ride there, and we sit and eat summer apples there.  Little rosy apples with dark streaks in them all warm with the sun.  You can’t think what a smell they have, just like pinks and spice boxes.  Why don’t they keep a little way off from each other in cities, and so have room for apple trees?  I don’t see why they need to crowd so.  I hate to think of you all shut up tight when I am let right out into green grass, and blue sky, and apple orchards.  That puts me in mind of something!  Zebiah Jane, Aunt Oldways’ girl, always washes her face in the morning at the pump-basin out in the back dooryard, just like the ducks.  She says she can’t spatter round in a room; she wants all creation for a slop-bowl.