Mr. Leslie made a discovery.  
He had remarked, early in the spring, that when he was really rich, when he had five or six millions of dollars, he was going to build a city in the form of a very large circle, only two streets deep, and inside of this circle was to be an immense farm.
 
“I shall begin,” he said, “by finding and buying a ready-made farm, for the and barns and and garden must all be old. I shall put all this in perfect order, without making it look new. Then I shall build twenty-five Swiss cottages, each with three rooms and a great deal of . I shall buy twenty-five excellent tents, and hide them about in the orchard and shrubberies, and I shall invite my friends, fifty families at a time, to come and stay a month with me on my farm; and if my friends should all be used up before the summer is over, I will ask some of them to nominate some of their friends. And in the meantime,” he added, dropping his millionaire tone of voice suddenly, “if we can find the farm and the farmhouse, we will make a beginning by going there for the summer, and planning the rest out.”
 
The others laughed at this dreadful coming down, but after that it became a favorite amusement to make additions to the “circular city,” and I could not begin to tell you all the plans which were made for the comfort and happiness and goodness of the “circular citizens,” as one thought of one thing, and one of another. And the best of this popular “pretend” was, that it set everybody thinking, and it was surprising to find how many of the plans for the dream-city might, in much smaller ways, of course, be carried out without waiting for all the rest.
 
For instance, when Tiny said that all the little girls should have dolls, her mother reminded her that she knew how to make very nicely those rag dolls which one makes by rolling up white muslin—a thick roll for the body, and a thin one for the arms; coarse thread sewed round where the neck ought to be, the top of the head “gathered” and covered with a little cap, eyes and nose and mouth inked, or worked in colored thread, upon the face, and the fact that the infant has only one leg by a nice long petticoat and frock.
 
Mrs. Leslie promised to supply as many “rags” as Tiny would use, in the making and of these dolls, and it became the little girl’s delight to carry one of them in her pocket, when she was going for a walk, and to give it to the poorest, most unhappy-looking child she could find. There are very few small girls who do not love to mother dolls, and Tiny’s heart would feel warm all day, remembering the change in some little pinched face, and the astonished,—
 
“For me? For my own to keep?”
 
And when Johnny said that all the sick people should have flowers every day, his mother reminded him that the “can’t-get-aways” were glad even of such common things as daisies and buttercups and clover blossoms. And after that he took many a long walk to the fields outside the town, where these could be found.
 
They had all hoped to go back to Mr. Allen’s for the summer, but when Mrs. Leslie wrote to ask Mrs. Allen if they could be received, Mrs. Allen replied, that since Ann had married and left them, half the house seemed gone, and she really didn’t think she could take any boarders this summer.
 
“Perhaps you did not hear that Ann was married,” she wrote; “but I miss her so, all the time, that I feel as if everybody must know it. She’s married a with two little children,—a nice, quiet, pleasant sort of a man,—but we all told Ann she only took him because she fell in love with the children! And she does seem as happy as a queen, and, for that matter, so does he; but it provokes me to think how little we set by her, considering what she was worth, till after we’d lost her.”
 
It was a week or two after this letter was received, that Mr. Leslie made his discovery. He found the farmhouse, the “very identical” farmhouse, for which he was , and he found it when he was not looking for it, as he was riding a horse which a friend had lent him.
 
The gate of the long lane which led up to the house was only half a mile from the railway station, and only eight miles from the town where the Leslies lived, and two dear old Quaker people, who “liked children,” lived there all alone, save for their few servants.
 
“No, they had never taken boarders,” Friend Mercy said, “and she was afraid the children—her married boys and girls—might not quite like it.”
 
But Mr. Leslie, at her invitation, dismounted, and tied his horse and sat down on the “settee,” under the lilac bushes, and drank buttermilk and ate gingerbread, and I am afraid he talked a good deal, and the result of it all was, that, just as he was going away, Friend Mercy said,—
 
“Well, thee bring thy wife and little ones to-morrow afternoon, Friend Leslie, and have a cup of tea with us. I will talk with Isaac in the meantime, and with thy wife when she comes, and—we’ll see.”
 
Mr. Leslie had no desire to break his children’s hearts, so, although it was hard work not to, he did not tell them all that Friend Mercy and he had said to each other, for fear she should not “see her way clear” to take them; so he only told of his pleasant call, and of this magnificent invitation to a real country tea, in the “inner circle”; and they were so nearly wild over that, that it was a very good thing he stopped there!
 
Friend Mercy had suggested the four o’clock train, which would give the children time for “a good run” before the six o’clock tea. So, while Tiny and Johnny played in the hay, and sailed boats on the , the older people talked; and the result was, that the Leslies were to be permitted to come and board in the “inner circle,” until the end of September.
 
A little talk which Friend Mercy had with her husband that evening, after the guests were gone, and when he said he was “afraid it wouldn’t work,” will explain this.
 
“Thee sees, Isaac,” she said, “those two dear little things have played here half the afternoon, and there was no quarrelling, or tale-bearing, or cruelty. They did not stone the chickens and geese, nor tease Bowser and the cat; and when I asked John to drive the cows to the spring—which, I will confess, I did with a purpose—he used neither stick nor stone. I would not have any children brought here who would teach bad tricks to Joseph’s and Hannah’s children, for the world; but with these I think we should be quite safe. Did thee notice how they put down the kittens, and came at once, when their father called them to go to the train? When they obey so such parents as these seem to be, there is nothing to fear.”
 
“Thee has had thy own way too long for me to begin to cross thee now, I’m afraid, mother,” said Friend Gray, with an indulgent smile. “So, if thy heart is really set upon it, let them come! The trouble of it will fall chiefly on thee, I fear.”
 
It did not seem to fall very heavily. The one strong, willing maid-of-all-work declared she could “do for a............