CLOVERNOOK. 



" Why, I have thought a great many times I would come," said the visitor, stamping 

 her little feet — for she was a little woman — briskly on the blue flag stones, and then dust- 

 ing them nicely with her white cambric handkerchief, before venturing on the snowy floor 

 of Mrs. Hill. And, shaking hands, she added, " It has been a good while, for I remem- 

 ber when I was here last I had my Jane with me — quite a baby then, if you mind— and 

 she is three years old now." 



"Is it possible?" said Mrs. Hill, untying the bonnet strings of her neighbor, who 

 sighed, as she continued, " Yes, she was three along in February;" and she sighed again, 

 more heavily than before, though there was no earthly reason that I know of why she 

 should sigh, unless perhaps the flight of time, thus brought to mind, suggested the transi- 

 tory nature of human things. 



Mrs. Hill laid the bonnet of Mrs. Troost on her "spare bed," and covered it with a 

 little, pale-blue crape shawl, kept especially for like occasions; and taking from the draw- 

 er of the bureau a large fan of turkey feathers, she presented it to her guest, saying, " A 

 very warm day, isn't it?" 



" Oh, dreadful, dreadful; it seems as hot as a bake oven; and I sufier with heat all 

 summer, more or less. But it's a world of suffering;" and Mrs. Troost half closed her 

 eyes, as if to shut out the terrible reality. 



" Hay-making requires sunshiny weather, you know; so we must put up with it," said 

 Mrs. Hill; " besides, I can mostly find some cool place about the house; I keep my sew- 

 ing here on the porch, and, as I bake my bread or cook my dinner, manage to catch it 

 up sometimes, and so keep from getting over-heated; and then, too, I get a good many 

 stitches taken in the course of the day." 



" This is a nice, cool place — completely curtained with vines," said Mrs. Troost; and 

 she sighed again; " thej^ must have cost you a great deal of pains." 



"Oh, no — no trouble at all; morning glories grow themselves; they only require 

 to be planted. I will save seed for you this fall, and next summer j^ou can have your 

 porch as shady as mine." 



" And if I do, it would not signify," said Mrs. Troost; "I never get time to set down 

 from one week's end to another; besides, I never had any luck with vines; some folks 

 have'nt, you know." 



Mrs. Hill was a woman of a short, plethoric habit; one that might be supposed to move 

 about with little agility, and to find excessive warmth rather inconvenient; but she was 

 of a happy, cheerful temperament; and when it rained she tucked up her skirts, put on 

 thick shoes, and waddled about the same as ever, saying to herself, " This will make the 

 grass grow," or "it will bring on the radishes," or something else equally consolatory. 



Mrs. Troost, on the contrary, was a little thin woman, who looked as though she might 

 move about nimbly at any season; but, as she herself often said, she was a poor unfortu- 

 nate creature, and pitied herself a great deal, as she was injustice bound to do, for nobody 

 else cared, she said, how much she had to bear. 



They were near neighbors — these good women — but their social interchanges of tea- 

 drinking were not of very frequent occurrence, for Mrs. Troost had nothing to wear like 

 other folks; sometimes it was too hot, and sometimes it was too cold; and then again, 

 nobody wanted to see her, and she was sure she didn't want to go where she wasn't wanted. 

 Moreover, she had such a great barn of a house as no other woman ever had to take care of. 

 But in all the ncigliborhood it was called the big house, so Mrs. Troost was in some mea- 

 sure compensated for the pains it cost her. It was however, as she said, a barn of a 

 with half the rooms unfurnished, partly because they had no use for them, and partly 



