Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. AN ALIEN. THE soft, cloudless summer night which succeeds a warm June day has for the lover of the country a charm indescribable. Myriads of voices that have been mute during the long hours of the bright sunshine wake to life with the falling of the shadows and the dew, and curious are the sounds of the homely band that joyously sings and chirps through the short summer night, making a sort of nature's serenade to an accompaniment of rustling tree-tops. Gilbert and Dick sat smoking on the long porch in silence, listening to the medley of sounds that came from the chirping, winged, insect world, aided occasionally by the distant cry 9f the whip-poor-will. Supper had long been over. Robin had kissed them all good-night, including Dick and Adsum, her two prime favorites. Dorothea had gone up with the child to give her a last good-night and make sure that she was none the worse for her fancied troubles of the afternoon. She returned after a short absence and joined the silent pair on the porch. She had been thinking all theafternoon of Dick and his father, and of the old days before The Meadows became so grand. It had been one of the places dear to her heart, years ago. She saw herself, a mere slip of a girl, going across the fields and over the stile ; sometimes alone, sometimes with Deborah, and, dearer still, sometimes with Gilbert, to take tea with Cousin Rebecca, Henry's mother. She remembered Deborah as she had been in the old days, a witty, quick-tempered girl, who it had been whispered about through the neighborhood, had cared for Henry and might have married him, but for the blight of cousinship. Then she thought of the lonely, sharp-voiced, energetic Deborah of to-day, who after Dick's mother's death had been asked to take up her abode and rule at Ivanw... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.