“Visitors don’t go on Mount Tom proper, as there is no accomodation for them,” interrupted Mrs. Tracy, “but on Mount Holyoke there is the Prospect House, which your uncle said last summer was a very well-kept house.  Why, it is thirty-five years ago that I was on top of that mountain, when, as a young girl, just a little older than you, I went with my father and mother.  A Mr. French had just taken the house.  I wonder if he is there now.  He seemed determined then to do what he could for the place.  I can hear him now telling my father that a spot which had been such a favorite one for over two hundred years must have some superior claim upon the people of his day.  I really would love to go there again.  It is one of those places which once seen is never forgotten, and then I could’nt choose a better spot for your introduction to a lovely mountain view.  But, my child, it is getting late and time for you to go to bed.  Run along and I will write to your uncle to-night and accept his cordial invitation.”

“And tell him” added Reuben, “that I wish every boy in this world had such a boss mother as I have.  Ned Bolton says so, too;” with which unique expression of love and gratitude he kissed his mother “Good night” and went off to bed to dream of, well, what do you think?  Of rattle-snakes, of mountains, or even of geography?  Oh, no! only nothing, for he was a healthy boy who said he couldn’t spare the time to dream.

After he had gone Mrs. Tracy sat alone for a while, thinking over this early visit of hers, with all the precious memories which it suggested of her own father and mother, now dead and gone.  Then she thought over the past year’s intimate life which she had enjoyed with her boy, and became more and more thankful that she had been enabled thus to get up out of her selfish grief of the summer before—­when death took her other children from her—­and empty her own life into the larger channel of life around her.  She was pleased to think of the good fruits that had arisen from her plans for her boy’s vacation trips, not only upon him but upon other mothers who had been led to follow her example.  She thought of the Christmas week she had spent with him in Boston, where they had enjoyed so many interesting historical sights.  And in the few weeks of the vacation which was now passing, it pleased her to recall the delightful days which they had spent at Concord and at Plymouth.  And now, in this evening reverie, she smiled as she thought of her boy’s telling his geography class all about the Isles of Shoals.  How she would loved to have heard him—­her fair-haired, blue-eyed boy, talking with all the intensity of his nature of what he had seen.  Ah! life had left much to her yet; and she determined anew that Reuben should never want for any of her sympathetic help, either in his sports or in his growing student life.  With this renewed determination she went into the house to write her letter to her brother at Northampton.