[CONTENTS.]
| Page | |
| [My Fire Opal.] | 1 |
| [The Story Of John Gravesend] | 37 |
| [A Bunch Of Violets.] | 65 |
| [A Disastrous Sleigh-ride.] | 91 |
| [Tuckered Out.] | 109 |
| [A Prison Child.] | 127 |
| [Escaped.] | 209 |
[MY FIRE OPAL.]
WELL, have it all your own way, Isabel," meekly conceded Alcibiades; "but really, now, you ought not to be left here alone. Couldn't you have managed to invite company for a day or two—Aunt Maria, say, or Alice Barnes, or Emma and the baby?"
"Company!" mocked I, "that now is like a man! Here am I planning to give poor, overworked Cicely a day or two off, while you are all away and the housework at its minimum, and straightway you propose company!—which, of course, implies regular meals and extra chamber work.
"No, I thank you, sir, not any company for me," said I, rising from the breakfast-table to drop my husband a derisive courtesy; "and indeed, and indeed," I urged, "you are not to give up your own vacation because your wife is scared of burglars and bugbears, with neighbors as thick as blackberries, within call, and a stout policeman snoozing away his beat against our front fence!"