“Will ye step aboard, my dearest,
    For the high seas lie before us?”

and then came over to sit beside me and tell the whole story in a more sensible fashion.

“You know that my father has been meaning to go to England in the autumn?  Yesterday he told us that he is to leave in a month and will be away all summer, and mamma is going with him.  Jack and Willy are to join a party of their classmates who are to spend nearly the whole of the long vacation at Lake Superior.  I don’t care to go abroad again now, and I did not like any plan that was proposed to me.  Aunt Anna was here all the afternoon, and she is going to take the house at Newport, which is very pleasant and unexpected, for she hates housekeeping.  Mamma thought of course that I would go with her, but I did not wish to do that, and it would only result in my keeping house for her visitors, whom I know very little; and she will be much more free and independent by herself.  Beside, she can have my room if I am not there.  I have promised to make her a long visit in Baltimore next winter instead.  I told mamma that I should like to stay here and go away when I choose.  There are ever so many visits which I have promised; I could stay with you and your Aunt Mary at Lenox if she goes there, for a while, and I have always wished to spend a summer in town; but mamma did not encourage that at all.  In the evening papa gave her a letter which had come from Mr. Dockum, the man who takes care of Aunt Katharine’s place, and the most charming idea came into my head, and I said I meant to spend my summer in Deephaven.

“At first they laughed at me, and then they said I might go if I chose, and at last they thought nothing could be pleasanter, and mamma wishes she were going herself.  I asked if she did not think you would be the best person to keep me company, and she does, and papa announced that he was just going to suggest my asking you.  I am to take Ann and Maggie, who will be overjoyed, for they came from that part of the country, and the other servants are to go with Aunt Anna, and old Nora will come to take care of this house, as she always does.  Perhaps you and I will come up to town once in a while for a few days.  We shall have such jolly housekeeping.  Mamma and I sat up very late last night, and everything is planned.  Mr. Dockum’s house is very near Aunt Katharine’s, so we shall not be lonely; though I know you’re no more afraid of that than I. O Helen, won’t you go?”

Do you think it took me long to decide?

Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster sailed the 10th of June, and my Aunt Mary went to spend her summer among the Berkshire Hills, so I was at the Lancasters’ ready to welcome Kate when she came home, after having said good by to her father and mother.  We meant to go to Deephaven in a week, but were obliged to stay in town longer.  Boston was nearly deserted of our friends at the last, and we used to take quiet walks in the cool of the evening after dinner, up