"
"Oh, I shouldn't dare as long as we are living here! You never know what
Nature may do. She has ways of her own of getting even with people,"
remarked her friend, solemnly.
No time must be lost in showing Boston to Katy, Rose said. So the
morning after her arrival she was taken in bright and early to see the
sights. There were not quite so many sights to be seen then as there are
today. The Art Museum had not got much above its foundations; the new
Trinity Church was still in the future; but the big organ and the bronze
statue of Beethoven were in their glory, and every day at high noon a
small straggling audience wandered into Music Hall to hear the
instrument played. To this extempore concert Katy was taken, and to
Faneuil Hall and the Athenaeum, to Doll and Richards's, where was an
exhibition of pictures, to the Granary Graveyard, and the Old South.
Then the girls did a little shopping; and by that time they were quite
tired enough to make the idea of luncheon agreeable, so they took the
path across the Common to the Joy Street Mall.
Katy was charmed by all she had seen. The delightful nearness of so many
interesting things surprised her. She perceived what is one of Boston's
chief charms,--that the Common and its surrounding streets make a
natural centre and rallying-point for the whole city; as the heart is
the centre of the body and keeps up a quick correspondence and regulates
the life of all its extremities. The stately old houses on Beacon
Street, with their rounded fronts, deep window-casements, and here and
there a mauve or a lilac pane set in the sashes, took her fancy greatly;
and so did the State House, whose situation made it sufficiently
imposing, even before the gilding of the dome.
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