Ah, the dreams of the climbers!  How silly they are!  Golden clouds at the top, and just as they are reached, some little Jack comes along and chops down the beanstalk, clouds and all.

So, Mrs. Yorke dreamed, and, a trifle anxious over Alice’s persistent reference to the charms of Spring woods and a Southern climate, after a week or two of driving down-town and eager choosing of hats and wearying fitting of dresses, started off with the girl on the yacht of Mr. Lancaster, a wealthy, dignified, and cultivated friend of her husband’s.  He had always been fond of Alice, and now got up a yacht-party for her to see the boat-race.

* * * * *

Keith had thought that the time when he should leave the region where he had been immersed so long would be the happiest hour of his life.  Yet, when the day came, he was conscious of a strange tugging at his heart.  These people whom he was leaving, and for whom he had in his heart an opinion very like contempt on account of their ignorance and narrowness, appeared to him a wholly different folk.  There was barely one of them but had been kind to him.  Hard they might appear and petty; but they lived close together, and, break through the crust, one was sure to find a warm heart and often a soft one.

He began to understand Dr. Balsam’s speech:  “I have lived in several kinds of society, and I like the simplest best.  One can get nearer to men here.  I do not ask gratitude.  I get affection.”

Keith had given notice that the school would close on a certain day.  The scholars always dropped off as summer came, to work in the crops; and the attendance of late had been slim.  This last day he hardly expected to have half a dozen pupils.  To his surprise, the school-house was filled.

Even Jake Dennison, who had been off in the mountains for some little time getting out timber, was on hand, large and good-humored, sitting beside Phrony Tripper in her pink ribbons, and fanning her hard enough to keep a mine fresh.  A little later in the day quite a number of the fathers and mothers of the children arrived in their rickety vehicles.  They had come to take leave of the young teacher.  There were almost as many as were present at the school celebration.  Keith was quite overcome, and when the hour arrived for closing the school, instead of, as he had expected, tying up the half-dozen books he kept in his desk, shaking hands with the dozen children eager to be turned loose in the delightful pasturage of summer holiday, turning the key in the lock, and plodding alone down the dusty road to Squire Rawson’s, he now found the school-room full, not of school-children only, but of grown people as well.  He had learned that they expected him to say something, and there was nothing for him to do but to make the effort.  For an hour, as he sat during the last lessons,—­which were in the nature of a review,—­the pages before him had been mere blurred spaces of white, and he had been cogitating what he should say.  Yet, when he rose, every idea that he had tried so faithfully to put into shape fled from his brain.