XXIX 



A FOUR-FOOTED DANCE 



EFORE the children luicl tired of 

 Camp Saturda}^, or the snow had 

 quite disappeared from the north 

 side of the stone fences, it was 

 iNIarcli, and that part of the month 

 when the sun rises and goes to 

 bed promptly at six o'clock. 

 The time of the year when he- 

 paticas, lodging in the leaf mould 

 of sheltered banks, are unfurling 

 their petals, when the brown carpet of the woods is 

 fragrant and rosy with arbutus flowers, and tufts of 

 broad green leaves dot the marshes and low meadows. 

 The children were quite well again, school kindly took 

 a double holiday to have a smoky furnace cured, and 

 so all the family at Orchard Farm, except Mammy Bun 

 and Rod, started on their excursion to New York. 

 Now in some respects excursions are very much alike : 

 people see, hear, and eat a great deal more than is good 

 for them, and are consequently usually rather tired and 

 peevish for several days afterward. This excursion, 

 however, was of a different sort; it had only one motive, 

 and that was to see in two da3^s as many of the four- 

 footed Americans as the city had to sliow. 



403 



