MILDRED KEITH - 1876 - PREFACE - Tm Keitb family were relatives of H m e Dinsmore, and as my readers will observe, thc date of thia story is some seven years earlier than that of the first Elsie book. The journey, and that most sickly w o n, which I have attempted to describe, were events in my own early childhood. The latter still dwells in my memory aa a dreadful dream. Our family4 large one–were all down with the fever except my aged grandmother and a little sister of six or seven, and help d d not be had for love or money. My father, whb wae a physician, kept up and made h rounds among his town and country patients for days after the fever had attacked him, but W E a J t length compelled to take his bed, and I well remember lying there badde him while the neighborn flocked into the room to consult him abont their sick ones at home. That region of country ie now, I believe, ae healthy as boat any other part of our favored land. Such a season, it was said, had never been known before, and thew hae been none like it oinca M. F. Y I L D R E D K E I T H . Qkap ter air5 t. Weep not that the world changes-did it keep A stable, changeless coarse, were oanse to weep. - B B Y . A SPRING morning in 183- winters icy breath exchanged for gentle breezes a faint tinge of yellow green on the woods but now so browu and bare violets and anemones showing their pretty modest faces by tlie roadside hill and valley clothed with verdure, rivulet8 dancing and singing, the river rolling onward in majestic gladness apple, peach and cherry trees in bloom birds building their nests men and worrlen busied here and there in field or garden, and over all The unoertain glory of an April v. The sun now shining outwarm and brigbt from a cloudless sky, now veiling his hce whih a sudden shower of rain sends the bnay workera hurrying to the nearest shelter. The air is full of pleafiant rural sonnds-the chirp of insects, the twittering of birds, the crowing of cocks-now near at hand, now far away, mellowed by the distance and in the streets of the pretty village of Lansdale, down yonder in the valley, there is the cheerful hum of busy life of buying and selling, of tearing down and building up neighbors chatting on doorsteps or over the garden fence, boys whistling and hallooing to their mates, children conuing their tasks, and mothers crooning to their babes. Out of the side door of a substantial brick home standing far back from the street, in the midst of a garden where the grass is of a velvety green spangled mi th violetg and snowballs and lilacs are bursting into bloom, steps a slight girlish figure…
