looking straight ahead; and she thought his face wore a troubled
expression. She felt as if she would like very much to smooth out the
wrinkles in his forehead and run her fingers through his hair, as she
sometimes did for her father. She had a great mind to ask him if she
should; then she reflected that it might make him nervous. Then she
wondered if he had forgotten her lessons, and how long they were to sit
there. Determined, at length, to have a change of some kind, she said,
softly,--

"Mr. Clerron!"

He roused himself suddenly, and stood up.

"I thought, perhaps, you had a headache."

"No, Ivy. But this is not climbing the hill of science, is it?"

"Not so much as it is climbing the piazza."

"Suppose we take a vacation to-day, and investigate the state of the
atmosphere?"

"Yes, Sir, I am ready."

Ivy did not fully understand the nature of his proposition; but if he
had proposed to "put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," she
would have said and acted, "Yes, Sir, I am ready," just the same.

He took up the basket of grapes which he had gathered, and led the way
through the window, down-stairs. Ivy waited for him at the hall-door,