Caroline Emilia Jacobs

“ To Patience's astonishment, nothing was said at supper, either of Uncle Paul's letter, or the wonderful things it was to lead to. Mr. Shaw kept his wife engaged with parish subjects and Pauline appeared lost in thoughts of her own. Patience fidgeted as openly as she dared. Of all queer grown-ups—and it looked as though most grown-ups were more or less queer—father was certainly the queerest. ”

“ Hilary was to drive him over to The Maples for dinner.
"Or such a summer altogether," Pauline added, from just inside the study window.
"Then Winton has possibilities?" Mr. Shaw asked.
"I should think it has; we ought to be eternally grateful to you for making us find them out," Pauline declared.
Mr. Shaw smiled, more as if to himself. "I daresay they're not all exhausted yet."
"Perhaps," Hilary said slowly, "some places are like some people, the longer and better you know them, the more you keep finding out in them to like." ”

“ Even more than the rest of the young folks, Shirley was getting the good of this happy, out-door summer, with its quiet pleasures and restful sense of home life. She had never known anything before like it. It was very different, certainly, from the studio life in New York, different from the sketching rambles she had taken other summers with her father. They were delightful, too, and it was pleasant to think of going back to them again—some day; but just at present, it was good to be a girl among other girls, interested in all the simple, homely things each day brought up. ”

“ PAULINE ALMY SHAW.
WINTON, VT., May Sixteenth.
Pauline laughed rather nervously as she slipped her letter into an envelope and addressed it. It wasn't a very big flag, but perhaps it would serve her purpose.
Tucking the letter into her blouse, Pauline ran down-stairs to the sitting-room, where her mother and Hilary were. "I'm going down to the post-office, mother," she said; "any errands?"
"My dear, in this rain?"
"There won't be any mail for us, Paul," Hilary said, glancing listlessly up from the book she was trying to read; "you'll only get all wet and uncomfortable for nothing." ”

“ Pauline glanced up quickly. How could she have thought him unheeding—indifferent?
"Somehow, I think it will work out all right," she said. "Anyhow, we're going to try it, aren't we. Mother Shaw? Patience thinks it the best idea ever, there'll be no urging needed there."
Pauline went up to bed that night feeling strangely happy. For one thing the uncertainty was over, and if they set to work to make this summer full of interest, to break up the monotony and routine that Hilary found so irksome, the result must be satisfactory. ”

“ Patience subsided reluctantly, her blue eyes most expressive.
"Isn't it nice for Hilary, mother? Now she'll be contented to stay a week or two, don't you think?" Pauline said.
"I hope so, dear. Yes, it is very nice."
"She was looking better already, mother; brighter, you know."
"Mummy, is asking a perfectly necessary question 'interrupting'?'"
"Perhaps not, dear, if there is only one," smiled Mrs. Shaw.
"Mayn't I, please, go with Paul and Hilary when they go to call on that girl?"
"On whom, Patience?"
Patience wriggled impatiently; grown people were certainly very trying at times. ”

“ Harry said to
Pauline.
Pauline laughed. Suddenly she looked up from her flowers with sobered face. "I wonder," she said slowly, "if you know what it's meant to us—you're being here this summer, Shirley? Sometimes things do fit in just right after all. It's helped out wonderfully this summer, having you here and the manor open."
"Pauline has a fairy-story uncle down in New York," Shirley turned to
Harry. "You've heard of him—Mr. Paul Shaw." ”

“ Pauline called. "Mind, you're to be ever and ever so much better, next time I come, Hilary."
"Your sister has been sick?" Shirley asked, her voice full of sympathetic interest.
"Not sick—exactly; just run down and listless."
Shirley leaned a little forward, drawing in long breaths of the clear evening air. "I don't see how anyone can ever get run down—here, in this air; I'm hardly indoors at all. Father and I have our meals out on the porch. You ought to have seen Betsy Todd's face, the first time I proposed it. 'Ain't the dining-room to your liking, miss?'" she asked. ”