When the season of fruits came, as we had a few apple and pear trees, besides a strawberry bed, and a fine row of raspberry bushes, our city friends, especially those who had children, were even more particular in their attentions.  Our own children, we could make understand the propriety of leaving the small fruit to be picked for table use, so that all could share in its enjoyment.  But, visitors’ children comprehended nothing of this, and rifled our beds and bushes so constantly, that, although they would have given our table a fair supply of berries, in the season, we never once could get enough to be worth using, and so were forced to purchase our fruit in the city.

After a destructive visitation of this nature, during strawberry time, I said to Mr. Smith, as he was leaving for the city one morning—­

“I wish you would take a small basket with you, and bring out two or three quarts of strawberries for tea.  I’ve only tasted them once or twice, and it’s hopeless to think of getting any from our garden.”

Well, when Mr. Smith came home with his two or three quarts of strawberries, we had six women and children, visitors from the city, to partake of them.  Of course, our own children, who had been promised strawberries at tea time, and who had been looking for them, did’nt get a taste.

And thus it happened over and over again.

As the weather grew warmer and warmer, particular friends whom we were glad to see, and friends, so called, into whose houses we had rarely, if ever ventured, came out to get a “mouthful of fresh air,” and to “see something green.”  We lived at “such a convenient distance,” that it was no trouble at all to run out and look at us.

Twice again during the summer, I was left without a single domestic.  Girls didn’t like to leave the city, where they had been used to meeting their acquaintances every few days; and, therefore, it was hard to retain them.  So it went on.

I had poor help, and was overrun with company, at such a rate, that I was completely worn out.  I rarely heard the rumble of the approaching stage that I did not get nervous.

Early in August, Mr. Smith said to me, one evening after returning from the city—­on that very morning, a family of four had left me, after staying three days—­

“I met Mr. Gray this afternoon, and he told me that they were coming out to see you to-morrow.  That he was going away for a while, and his wife thought that it would be such a pleasant time to redeem her promise of making you a visit.”

“Oh dear!  What next!” I exclaimed in a distressed voice.  “Is there to be no end to this?”

“Not before frost, I presume,” returned Mr. Smith, meaningly.

“I wish frost would come along quickly, then,” was my response.  “But how long is Mr. Gray going to be absent from home?”

“He didn’t say.”

“And we’re to have his whole family, I suppose, during his absence.”