The Story of a Summer | Page 2

Younger Sisters--Their
Education
CHAPTER XX.
A Quiet Household--Absence of Marguerite and Gabrielle--Amusing

Letters from them--A Gypsy Fortune-teller--Marguerite returns with a
Visitor--The Harvest Moon--Preparing for Company--Arranging the
Blue Room--Intense Anticipation--"'He Cometh Not,' She Said"
CHAPTER XXI.
The Story of Mr. Greeley's Parents continued--He accompanies his
Mother to New Hampshire--Her Sisters--Three Thanksgivings in One
Year--Pickie as a Baby--His Childhood--Mrs. Greeley's Careful
Training--His Playthings--His Death--A Letter from Margaret Fuller
CHAPTER XXII.
The Friends' Seminary--The Principal Chappaqua
Residences--Reminiscences of Paris during the War--An Accomplished
Lady--Her Voice--Festivities--A Drive to Rye Lake--Making Tea on
the Beach--A Sail at Sunset--Fortune-telling by Firelight--The Drive
Home--Sunday Morning--A Row on the Pond--Dramatic
Representations in the Barn--A Drive to Lake Wampus--Starlight Row
CHAPTER XXIII.
Marriage of a Cousin--A Pretty Bride--Letters--Home Circle
Complete--A Letter of Adventures--Wedding Cards--A Musical
Marriage--Housekeeping under Difficulties--Telegraphic Blunders--A
Bust of Mr. Greeley--More Visitors
CHAPTER XXIV.
"All that's Bright must Fade"--Departures--Preparing the House for the
Winter--Page's Portrait of Pickie--Packing up--Studious Habits of the
Domestics--The Cook and her Admirers--Adieu to Chappaqua

ILLUSTRATIONS
The Side-Hill House

The Spring
The Rail-Road Station
The House in the Woods
The Children's Play House
The Stone Barn

THE STORY OF A SUMMER;
OR,
JOURNAL LEAVES FROM CHAPPAQUA.
CHAPTER I.
Return to Chappaqua--A Walk over the Grounds--The Sidehill
House--Our First Sunday at Chappaqua--Drive to Mount Kisco--A
Country Church--A Dame Châtelaine--Our Domestic Surroundings.
CHAPPAQUA, WESTCHESTER Co.,
New York, May 28, 1873
Again at dear Chappaqua, after an absence of seven months. I have not
the heart to journalize tonight, everything seems so sad and strange.
What a year this has been--what bright anticipations, what
overwhelming sorrow!
May 30.
I have just returned from a long ramble over the dear old place; first up
to the new house so picturesquely placed upon a hill, and down through
the woods to the cool pine grove and the flower-garden. Here I found a
wilderness of purple and white lilacs, longing, I thought, for a friendly

hand to gather them before they faded; dear little bright-eyed pansies,
and scarlet and crimson flowering shrubs, a souvenir of travel in
England, with sweet-scented violets striped blue and white,
transplanted from Pickie's little garden at Turtle Bay long years ago.
[Illustration: The Side-Hill House.]
Returning, I again climbed the hill, and unlocked the doors of the new
house; that house built expressly for Aunt Mary's comfort, but which
has never yet been occupied. Every convenience of the architect's art is
to be found in this house, from the immense, airy bedroom, with its
seven windows, intended for Aunt Mary, to a porte cochère to protect
her against the inclemency of the weather upon returning from a drive.
But this house, in the building of which she took so keen an interest,
she was not destined to inhabit, although with that buoyancy of mind
and tenacity to life that characterized her during her long years of
weary illness, she contemplated being carried into it during the early
days of last October, and even ordered fires to be lighted to carry off
the dampness before she tried her new room. By much persuasion,
however, she was induced to postpone her removal from day to day;
and finally, as she grew weaker and weaker, she decided to abandon
that plan, and journey to New York while she could. In two weeks
more she had left us forever.
June 1.
Our first Sunday at Chappaqua. We have a little church for a next-door
neighbor, in which services of different sects are held on alternate
Sundays, the pulpit being hospitably open to all denominations
excepting Papists. Three members of our little household,
however--mamma, Marguerite, and I--belong to the grand old Church
of Rome; so the carriage was ordered, and with our brother in religion,
Bernard, the coachman, for a pioneer, we started to find a church or
chapel of the Latin faith. At Mount Kisco, a little town four miles
distant, Bernard thought we might hear Mass, "but then it's not the sort
of church you ladies are used to," he added, apologetically; "it's a small
chapel, and only rough working people go there."

I was quite amused at the idea that the presence of poor people was any
objection, for is it not a source of pride to Catholics that their church is
open alike to the humblest and richest; so with a suggestive word from
Bernard, Gabrielle's spirited ponies flew
"Over the hills, and far away."

A perpetual ascent and descent it seemed--a dusty road, for we are
sadly in want of rain, and few shade-trees border the road; but once in
Mount Kisco, the novelty of the little chapel quite compensated for the
disagreeable features of our journey there. A tiny chapel indeed--a plain
frame building, with no pretence to architectural beauty. It was
intended originally, I thought, for a Protestant meeting-house, as the
cruciform shape, so