was from the old Philadelphia scheme of things. Nowadays the motor brings the country into town and town into the country. But the miles between town and country were then lengthened into leagues by the leisurely boat and the leisurely horse-car which, as I look back, seem to set the pace of life in Philadelphia when I was young.
III
At first my holidays were spent mostly at the Convent. My Father, with the young widower's embarrassment when confronted by his motherless children, solved the problem the existence of my Sister and myself was to him by putting us where he knew we were safe and well out of his way. I do not blame him. What is a man to do when he finds himself with two little girls on his clumsy masculine hands? But the result was he had no house of his own to bring us to when the other girls hurried joyfully home at Christmas and Easter and for the long summer holiday. It hurt as I used to watch them walking briskly down the long path on the way to the station. And yet, I scored in the end, for Philadelphia was the more marvellous to me, visiting it rarely, than it could have been to children to whom it was an everyday affair.
For years my Grandfather's house was the scene of the occasional visit. He lived in Spruce Street above Eleventh—the typical Philadelphia Street, straight and narrow, on either side rows of red brick houses, each with white marble steps, white shutters below and green
