HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. THE CHAPTER I. SEA BREEZES. "But nature was so kind!: Like a dear friend I loved the loneliness When passed the wandering wind... Cebia Thaxter. HE train stopped, without abruptness, the conductor called out "South Berwick," in almost a conversational key, to the inhabitants of the one passenger car that, with the baggage car and tender, formed the train. It had been crawling for hours along a flat country, stopping at intervals at stations that bore a family likeness to this, and then moving stolidly forward through more scrub oaks, and more sandy cuttings, and past more isolated and despondent farms. Sometimes a passenger got off. Less frequently one or two got on. At one place a man got off, and I watched him walk away, down a straight, long, sandy road that ran through a low pine wood, and seemed to have no ending. He was very tall, and seemed to dwarf the poor little forest He carried a bag, and was dressed all in black broadcloth, and the hat he wore was a sleek, well-brushed beaver, which caught the rays of the morning sun, over the tops of the pitiful trees, and shone illustriously. We stayed so long at that station I watched him a good way on his journey; but he did not turn back, or evince any interest in what he had left behind him. I wondered whether he was going to preach a sermon at a funeral or to sell books out of his leather bag. But "whither would conjecture stray?" Here we were at South Berwick, and my heart, which had been growing heavier with each added mile of sand, went down with a sudden. precipitation as I heard the long-looked for announcement, and gathering up the child and the bag that fell to my share, stepped out upon the platform. It was a desperately dull and dreary place. One or two men moved about deliberately, and seemed to be taking care of our trunks and of the mail-bag, which were all that they put out of the baggage-car. Though it was the last of May, and though a bright sun was shining, the wind was blowing from the sea, and it was cold. I wrapped a shawl around Maidy, who clung close to me and looked bewildered; Sophia (she was maid, but she ought to have been mistress) set down Baby on the platform, handed me the cord by which she held the dog, and bustled about to see to the trunks. I took Baby by one hand and Maidy by the other, and walked up and down on the boards, and felt very sorry for myself. What desolation, what dullness! and we had taken a house here, and had to stay all summer had been so long used to brick and mortar dullness and desolation that this seemed very chilly. I "Don't go away with the checks," called Sophia |