'I was young then,' replied Lucy; 'I am older now, and have less confidence in my argumentative powers. I love truth as well, but doubt my capacity to lift her veil, the willingness of mortals to seek her humbly, or the certainty of their yielding to conviction, even were she bodily, in unclouded radiance, to stand before them. I hope I may always have courage sufficient to support my honest convictions, but I must confess the effort has become a painful one, and I instinctively fly all wrangling as I would the plague.' 'Do you then desire to lead an isolated life?' asked Mrs. Grundy. 'By no means,' replied Lucy. 'Duty and affection both bind me to active service in the ranks of the world, and, to return to the subject of a retired country sojourn, the freedom from _gene_, the absence of hurry, the _confidentiality_ of nature, lead us in a week to a better comprehension and appreciation of the few persons surrounding us than could be obtained in years of ordinary city acquaintance. Bricks and mortar and cut stones tend to the revelation of but few secrets, but the evening twilight, the crescent moon, the morning dawn, the forest shade, and the noonday repose are persuasive openers of hearts and weavers of sympathy. A walk with Elsie is far more to me than a solitary ramble. Then, too, the country population frequently exhibit an originality and individuality of development more often missed than found in the assimilating atmosphere of cities.' 'I should weary in a week of such a dull, sentimentalizing mode of existence,' said Aunt Sarah, with a significant shrug of her prettily drooping shoulders. 'Sentimentalizing!' cried Lucy; 'nothing can be more healthfully real, more conducive to strength and will to work, when the last red leaf has fallen, and the gray November clouds remind one that Paradise is not yet gained, and that a world of toil and strife and passion has a claim upon each mortal's earnest labor. Also, the comic side of life is by no means wanting among the hills, and many an innocent laugh is to be enjoyed with, not at, one's fellow creatures. Humor I love dearly; satire is simply hateful--filled with pain. I can always see the victim (if he only knew!) writhing and blenching beneath the bitter glances and blasting words of fiendish tormentors.' 'Yes, indeed,' said Elsie, 'many a merry evening have we spent laughing over the day's adventures. The singular coincidences and strange incongruities of American life are nowhere more strikingly exhibited than among the hills and lakes bordering the great thoroughfares of travel. Do you remember, Lucy, the transit of our friends, the foreign professor and the artist, from the Catskill Mountain House to the head of the Kauterskill Falls?' 'Can I ever forget it?' 'What transit was that, Lucy?' asked Mrs. Grundy.