couldn't have persuaded me that I had time; and I'm always telling him lies, and pretending to be as well acquainted as he is with authors I hardly know by name,--he seems so fondly to expect it. He's really almost a disembodied spirit as concerns most mundane interests--his soul is in literature, as a lover's in his mistress's beauty; and in the next world, where, as the Swedenborgians believe, spirits seen at a distance appear like the things they most resemble in disposition, as doves, hawks, goats, lambs, swine, and so on, I'm sure that I shall see his true and kindly soul in the guise of a noble old Folio, quaintly lettered across his back in old English text, _Tom. I._” While our friends talked and looked about them, a sudden change had come over the brightness and warmth of the day; the blue heaven had turned a chilly gray, and the water looked harsh and cold. Now, too, they noted that they were drawing near a wooden pier built into the water, and that they had been winding about in a crooked channel between muddy shallows, and that their course was overrun with long, disheveled sea-weed. The shawls had been unstrapped, and the ladies made comfortable in them. “Ho for the beach!” cried Cousin Frank, with a vehement show of enthusiasm. “Now, then, Aunt Melissa, prepare for the great enjoyment of the day. In a few moments we shall be of the elves 'That on the sand with printless foot Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly him When he comes back.' Come! we shall have three hours on the beach, and that will bring us well into the cool of the evening, and we can return by the last boat.” “As to the cool of the evening,” said Aunt Melissa, “I don't know. It's quite cool enough for comfort at present, and I'm sure that anything more wouldn't be wholesome. What's become of our beautiful weather?” she asked, deeply plotting to gain time. “It's one of our Boston peculiarities, not to say merits,” answered Frank, “which you must have noticed already, that we can get rid of a fine day sooner than any other region. While you're saying how lovely it is, a subtle change is wrought, and under skies still blue and a sun still warm the keen spirit of the east wind pierces every nerve, and all the fine weather within you is chilled and extinguished. The gray atmosphere follows, but the day first languishes in yourself. But for this, life in Boston would be insupportably perfect, if this is indeed a drawback. You'd find Bostonians to defend it, I dare say. But this isn't a regular east wind to-day; it's merely our nearness to the sea.” “I think, Franklin,” said Aunt Melissa, “that we won't go down to the beach this afternoon,” as if she had been there yesterday, and would go to-morrow. “It's too late in the day; and it wouldn't be good for the child, I'm sure.”