It was a very happy time that the inland girls spent with Mrs. Richie, in her small house on the Jersey shore. It happened that neither of them had ever seen the ocean, and their first glimpse of it was a great experience. Added to that was the experience, new to both of them, of daily companionship with a serene nature. Mrs. Richie was always a little remote, a little inclined to keep people at arm's-length; there were undercurrents of sadness in her talk, and she was perhaps rather absorbed in her own supreme affair, maternal love. Also, her calm outlook upon heavenly horizons made the affairs of the girls seem sometimes disconcertingly small, and to realize the smallness of one's affairs is in itself an experience to youth. But in spite of the ultimate reserves they felt in her, Mrs. Richie was sympathetic, and full of soft gaieties, with endless patience for people and events. Elizabeth's old uneasy dislike of her had long since yielded to the fact that she was David's mother, and so must be, and in theory was, loved. But the love was really only a faint awe at what she still called "perfection"; and during the two months of living under the same roof with her, Elizabeth felt at times a resentful consciousness that Mrs. Richie was afraid of that ungovernable temper, which, the girl used to say, impatiently, "never hurts anybody but myself!" Like most high-tempered people, Elizabeth, though penitent and more or less mortified by her outbursts of fury, was always a little astonished when any one took them seriously; and Mrs. Richie took them very seriously. Nannie, being far simpler than Elizabeth, was less impressed by Mrs. Richie than by her surroundings;--the ocean, the whole gamut of marine sights and happenings; Mrs. Richie's housekeeping; the delicate food and serving (what would Harris have thought of that table!)-all these things, as well as David's fortnightly visits, and Elizabeth's ardors and gay coldnesses, were delights to Nannie. Both girls had an absorbingly good time, and when the last day of the last week finally arrived, and Mr. Robert Ferguson appeared to escort them home, they were both of them distinctly doleful.