After the party came back from the Isles of Shoals, Mrs. Van Alstyne went down to Newport. The Marchbankses had other visitors,—people whom we did not know, and in whose way we were not thrown; the haute volée was sufficient to itself again, and we lived on a piece of our own life once more.
"It's rather nice to knit on straight," said Barbara; "without any widening or narrowing or counting of stitches. I like very well to come to a plain place."
Rosamond never liked the plain places quite so much; but she accommodated herself beautifully, and was just as nice as she could be. And the very best thing about Rose was, that she never put on anything, or left anything off, of her gentle ways and notions. She would have been ready at any time for the most delicate fancy-pattern that could be woven upon her plain places. That was one thing which mother taught us all.
"Your life will come to you; you need not run after it," she would say, if we ever got restless and began to think there was no way out of the family hedge. "Have everything in yourselves as it should be, and then you can take the chances as they arrive."
"Only we needn't put our bonnets on, and sit at the windows," Barbara once replied.
"No," said Mrs. Holabird; "and especially at the front windows. A great deal that is good—a great deal of the best—comes in at the back-doors."
Everybody, we thought, did not have a back-door to their life, as we did. They hardly seemed to know if they had one to their houses.
Our "back yett was ajee," now, at any rate.
Leslie Goldthwaite came in at it, though, just the same, and so did her cousin and Dakie. [*]
Otherwise, for two or three weeks, our chief variety was in sending for old Miss Trixie Spring to spend the day.