Perhaps you may have to
drag your readers twenty-five years into the regions of the past, and
show them the first tooth of your oldest character; but that doesn't
matter a bit,--the further the better. Then, when everybody has
forgotten what came to pass in the first chapter, you are ready to
take it up again, as if there had never been any parenthesis.
However, I shall not introduce you to the cradles, cribs, or trundle-
beds of my merry young campers, but merely ask you to retrace your
steps one week, and look upon them in their homes.
On one of the pleasantest streets of a certain little California town
stood, and still stands for aught I know, a pretty brown cottage,
with its verandahs covered with passion-vine and a brilliant rose-
garden in front. It is picturesque enough to attract the attention
of any passer-by, and if you had chosen to peep through the crevices
in the thick vines and look in at the open window, you might have
thought it lovelier within than without.
It was a bright day, and the gracious June sunshine flooded the room
with yellow light. Three young girls, perhaps fourteen or fifteen
years old, were seated in different parts of the large room, plying
industrious crochet needles and tatting shuttles. Three pairs of
bright eyes were dancing with fun and gladness; and another pair, the
softest and clearest of all, looked out from a broad white bed in the
corner,--tired eyes, and oh, so patient, for the health-giving
breezes wafted in from the blue ocean and carried over mountain tops
and vine-covered slopes had so far failed to bring back Elsie
Howard's strength and vigour.
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