"A sudden enthusiasm fired us, and we grasped each other's hands in

the heartyimpulse of the moment. My own private intention to make
a summer trip to the White Mountains had been relinquished the

moment I heard Eunice give in her adhesion. I may as well confess,
at once, that I was desperately in love, and afraid to speak to

her.
"By the time Mrs. Sheldrake brought in the apples and water we

were discussing the plan as a settled thing. Hollins had an
engagement to deliver Temperance lectures in Ohio during the

summer, but decided to postpone his departure until August, so that
he might, at least, spend two months with us. Faith Levis couldn't

go--at which, I think, we were all secretly glad. Some three or
four others were in the same case, and the company was finally

arranged to consist of the Shelldrakes, Hollins, Mallory, Eunice,
Miss Ringtop, and myself. We did not give much thought, either to

the preparations in advance, or to our mode of life when settled
there. We were to live near to Nature: that was the main thing.

"`What shall we call the place?' asked Eunice.
"`Arcadia!' said Abel Mallory, rolling up his large green eyes.

"`Then,' said Hollins, `let us constitute ourselves the Arcadian
Club!'"

"Aha!" interrupted Mr. Johnson, "I see! The A. C.!"
"Yes, you can see the A. C. now," said Mrs. Billings; "but to

understand it fully, you should have had a share in those Arcadian
experiences."

"I am all the more interested in hearing them described. Go on,
Enos."

"The proposition was adopted. We called ourselves The Arcadian
Club; but in order to avoid gossip, and the usual ridicule, to

which we were all more or less sensitive, in case our plan should
become generally known, it was agreed that the initials only should

be used. Besides, there was an agreeable air of mystery about it:
we thought of Delphi, and Eleusis, and Samothrace: we should

discover that Truth which the dim eyes of worldly men and women
were unable to see, and the day of disclosure would be the day of

Triumph. In one sense we were truly Arcadians: no suspicion of
impropriety, I verily believe, entered any of our minds. In our

aspirations after what we called a truer life there was no material
taint. We were fools, if you choose, but as far as possible from

being sinners. Besides, the characters of Mr. and Mrs. Shelldrake,
who naturally became the heads of our proposed community were

sufficient to preserve us from slander or suspicion, if even
our designs had been publicly announced.

"I won't bore you with an account of our preparations. In fact,
there was very little to be done. Mr. Shelldrake succeeded in

hiring the house, with most of its furniture, so that but a few
articles had to be supplied. My trunk contained more books than

boots, more blank paper than linen.
"`Two shirts will be enough,' said Abel: `you can wash one of them

any day, and dry it in the sun.'
"The supplies consisted mostly of flour, potatoes, and sugar.

There was a vegetable-garden in good condition, Mr. Shelldrake
said, which would be our principal dependence.

"`Besides, the clams!' I exclaimed unthinkingly.
"`Oh, yes!' said Eunice, `we can have chowder-parties: that will be

delightful!'
"`Clams! chowder! oh, worse than flesh!' groaned Abel. `Will you

reverence Nature by outraging her first laws?'
"I had made a great mistake, and felt very foolish. Eunice and I

looked at each other, for the first time."
"Speak for yourself only, Enos," gently interpolated his wife.

"It was a lovely afternoon in the beginning of June when we first
approached Arcadia. We had taken two double teams at Bridgeport,

and drove slowly forward to our destination, followed by a cart
containing our trunks and a few household articles. It was a

bright, balmy day: the wheat-fields were rich and green, the
clover showed faint streaks of ruby mist along slopes leaning

southward, and the meadows were yellow with buttercups. Now and
then we caught glimpses of the Sound, and, far beyond it, the dim

Long Island shore. Every old white farmhouse, with its gray-walled
garden, its clumps of lilacs, viburnums, and early roses, offered

us a picture of pastoralsimplicity and repose. We passed them,
one by one, in the happiest mood, enjoying the earth around us, the

sky above, and ourselves most of all.
"The scenery, however, gradually became more rough and broken.

Knobs of gray gneiss, crowned by mournful cedars, intrenched upon
the arable land, and the dark-blue gleam of water appeared through

the trees. Our road, which had been approaching the Sound, now
skirted the head of a deep, irregular inlet, beyond which extended

a beautiful promontory, thickly studded with cedars, and with
scattering groups of elm, oak and maple trees. Towards the end of

the promontory stood a house, with white walls shining against the
blue line of the Sound.

"`There is Arcadia, at last!' exclaimed Mr. Shelldrake.
"A general outcry of delight greeted the announcement. And,

indeed, the loveliness of the picture surpassed our most poetic
anticipations. The low sun was throwing exquisite lights across

the point, painting the slopes of grass of golden green, and giving
a pearly softness to the gray rocks. In the back-ground was drawn

the far-off water-line, over which a few specks of sail glimmered
against the sky. Miss Ringtop, who, with Eunice, Mallory, and

myself, occupied one carriage, expressed her `gushing' feelings in
the usual manner:

"`Where the turf is softest, greenest,
Doth an angel thrust me on,--

Where the landscape lies serenest,
In the journey of the sun!'

"`Don't, Pauline!' said Eunice; `I never like to hear poetry
flourished in the face of Nature. This landscape surpasses any

poem in the world. Let us enjoy the best thing we have, rather
than the next best.'

"`Ah, yes!' sighed Miss Ringtop, `'tis true!
"`They sing to the ear; this sings to the eye!'

"Thenceforward, to the house, all was childish joy and jubilee.
All minor personal repugnances were smoothed over in the general

exultation. Even Abel Mallory became agreeable; and Hollins,
sitting beside Mrs. Shelldrake on the back seat of the foremost

carriage, shouted to us, in boyish lightness of heart.
"Passing the head of the inlet, we left the country-road, and

entered, through a gate in the tottering stone wall, on our summer
domain. A track, open to the field on one side, led us past a

clump of deciduous trees, between pastures broken by cedared knolls
of rock, down the centre of the peninsula, to the house. It was

quite an old frame-building, two stories high, with a gambrel roof
and tall chimneys. Two slim Lombardy poplars and a broad-

leaved catalpa shaded the southern side, and a kitchen-garden,
divided in the centre by a double row of untrimmed currant-bushes,

flanked it on the east. For flowers, there were masses of blue
flags and coarse tawny-red lilies, besides a huge trumpet-vine

which swung its pendent arms from one of the gables. In front of
the house a natural lawn of mingled turf and rock sloped steeply

down to the water, which was not more than two hundred yards
distant. To the west was another and broader inlet of the Sound,

out of which our Arcadian promontory rose bluff and bold, crowned
with a thick fringe of pines. It was really a lovely spot which

Shelldrake had chosen--so secluded, while almost surrounded by the
winged and moving life of the Sound, so simple, so pastoral and

home-like. No one doubted the success of our experiment, for that
evening at least.

"Perkins Brown, Shelldrake's boy-of-all-work, awaited us at the