"Never, no, never, have I had such good times," she wrote to her Cousin Jack at Newport. "We eat on the porch, and make believe camp out in the woods, and we ride on Bess and Bob all over the Mountain. We've about finished the preserves and jams, and Rose has only burnt herself twice. The chickens, Chi says, are going to be prime ones; it 's awfully funny to see them come flying and hopping and running towards us the minute they see us--March says it's the 'Charge of the Light Brigade.'
"I wish you could be up here and have some of the fun,--but I 'm afraid you 're too old. I enclose the song Rose sings which you asked me for. I don't understand it, but it's perfectly beautiful when she sings it."
Hazel had asked Rose for the words of the song, telling her that her Cousin Jack at Harvard would like to have them. Rose looked surprised for a moment.
"What can he want of them?" she asked in a rather dignified manner; and Hazel, thinking she was giving the explanation the most reasonable as well as agreeable, replied:--
"I don't know for sure, but I think--you won't tell, will you, Rose?"
"Of course I won't. I don't even know your cousin, to begin with."
"I think he is going to be engaged, or is, to Miss Seaton of New York. All his friends think she is awfully pretty, and papa says she is fascinating. I think Jack wanted them to give to her."
"Oh," said Rose, in a cool voice with a circumflex inflection, then added in a decidedly toploftical tone, "I've no objection to his making use of them. I 'll copy them for you."
"Thank you, Rose," said Hazel, rather puzzled and a little hurt at Rose's new manner.
This conversation took place the first week in August, and the verses were duly forwarded to Jack, who read them over twice, and then, thrusting them into his breast-pocket, went over to the Casino, whistling softly to himself on the way. There, meeting his chum and some other friends, he proposed a riding-trip through the Green Mountain region for the latter part of August.