dy crowned with majesty and
robed in mystery. And I still incline to Percy's opinion. Olga is always
wonderful to me. Her lips are such a soft and melting red, the red of
perfect animal health. The very milkiness of her skin is an
advertisement of that queenly and all-conquering vitality which lifts
her so above the ordinary ruck of humanity. And her great ruminative
eyes are as clear and limpid as any woodland pool.

She blushes rose color sometimes when Percy comes in. I think he finds a
secret joy in sensing that reaction in anything so colossal. But he
defends himself behind that mask of cool impersonality which is the last
attribute of the mental aristocrat, no matter what his feelings may be.
His attitude toward Terry, by the way, is a remarkably companionable one
in view of the fact of their earlier contentions. They can let by-gones
be by-gones and talk and smoke and laugh together. It is Terry, if any
one, who is just a wee bit condescending. And I imagine that it is the
aura of Olga which has brought about this oddly democratizing condition
of affairs. She seems to give a new relationship to things, softening a
point here and illuminating a point there as quietly as moonlight itself
can do.

_Monday the Seventeenth_

Yesterday Olga carried home a whole pailful of mushrooms, for an Indian
summer seems to have brought on a second crop of them. They were lovely.
But she refused to eat any. I asked her why. She heaved her huge
shoulders and said she didn't know. But she does, I feel sure, and I've
been wondering why she's afraid of anything that can taste so good, once
they are creamed and heaped on a square of toast. As for me

I love 'em, I love 'em, and who shall dare
To chide me for loving that mushroom fare?

_Wednesday the Nineteenth_

I found myself singing for all I was worth as I did my work this
morning. Dinky-Dunk came and stood in the door and said it sounded like
old times. I feel strong again and have ventured to ask my lord and
master if I couldn't have the weentiest gallop on Paddy once more. But
he's made me promise to wait for a week or two. The last two or three
nights have been quite cold, and away off, miles and miles across the
prairie, we can see the glow of fires where different ranchers are
burning their straw, after the wind-stackers have blown it from the
threshing machines. Sometimes it burns all night long.

_Friday the Twenty-first_

I have this m