Read "The Queen of Sheba and my Cousin the Colonel" by Thomas Bailey Aldrich online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the month of June, 1872, Mr. Edward Lynde, the assistant cashier and / bookkeeper of the Nautilus Bank at Rivermouth, found himself in a / position to execute a plan which he had long meditated in secret.
A statement like this at the present time, when integrity in a place of / trust has become almost an anomaly, immediately suggests a defalcation; / but Mr. Lynde's plan involved nothing more criminal than a horseback / excursion through the northern part of the State of New Hampshire. A / leave of absence of three weeks, which had been accorded him in / recognition of several years' conscientious service, offered young / Lynde the opportunity he had desired. These three weeks, as already / hinted, fell in the month of June, when Nature in New Hampshire is in / her most ravishing toilet; she has put away her winter ermine, which / sometimes serves her quite into spring; she has thrown a green mantle / over her brown shoulders, and is not above the coquetry of wearing a / great variety of wild flowers on her bosom. With her sassafras and her / sweet-brier she is in her best mood, as a woman in a fresh and becoming / costume is apt to be, and almost any one might mistake her laugh for / the music of falling water, and the agreeable rustle of her garments / for the wind blowing through the pine forests.