Page:The Author of Beltraffio, Pandora, Georgina's Reasons, The Path of Duty, Four Meetings (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co., 1885).djvu/108

104 wanted to show her little sister everything while she was young; remarkable sights made so much more impression when the mind was fresh; she had read something of that sort in Goethe, somewhere. She had wanted to come herself, when she was her sister's age; but her father was in business then, and they could n't leave Utica. Vogelstein thought of the little sister frisking over the Parthenon and the Mount of Olives, and sharing for two years, the years of the school-room, this extraordinary pilgrimage of her parents, and wondered whether Goethe's dictum had been justified in this case. He asked Pandora if Utica were the seat of her family, if it were a pleasant place, if it would be an interesting city for him, as a stranger, to see. His companion replied frankly that it was horrid, but added that all the same she would ask him to "come and visit us at our home," if it were not that they should probably soon leave it.

"Ah! You are going to live elsewhere?"

"Well, I am working for New York. I flatter myself I have loosened them, while we have been away. They won't find Utica the same; that was my idea. I want a big place, and, of course, Utica—" and the girl broke off with a little sigh.

"I suppose Utica is small?" Vogelstein suggested.

"Well, no, it's middle-sized. I hate anything middling," said Pandora Day. She gave a light, dry laugh, tossing back her head a little as she made this declaration. And looking at her askance in the