brother at
Harvard, elder brother killed at the battle of Fair Oaks, ten years
ago. Old, rich family, the Daws. This is the homestead, where father
and daughter pass eight months of the twelve; the rest of the year in
Baltimore and Washington. The New England winter too many for the old
gentleman. The daughter is called Marjorie--Marjorie Daw. Sounds odd at
first, doesn't it? But after you say it over to yourself half a dozen
times, you like it. There's a pleasing quaintness to it, something prim
and violet-like. Must be a nice sort of girl to be called Marjorie Daw.

I had mine host of The Pines in the witness-box last night, and drew
the foregoing testimony from him. He has charge of Mr. Daw's
vegetable-garden, and has known the family these thirty years. Of course
I shall make the acquaintance of my neighbors before many days. It will
be next to impossible for me not to meet Mr. Daw or Miss Daw in some of
my walks. The young lady has a favorite path to the sea-beach. I shall
intercept her some morning, and touch my hat to her. Then the princess
will bend her fair head to me with courteous surprise not unmixed with
haughtiness. Will snub me, in fact. All this for thy sake, O Pasha of
the Snapt Axle-tree!... How oddly things fall out! Ten minutes ago I was
called down to the parlor--you know the kind of parlors in farm-houses
on the coast, a sort of amphibious parlor, with sea-shells on the
mantel-piece and spruce branches in the chimney-place--where I found my
father and Mr. Daw doing the antique polite to each other. He had
come to pay his respects to his new neighbors. Mr. Daw is a tall,
slim gentleman of about fifty-five, with a florid face and snow-white
mustache and side-whiskers. Looks like Mr. Dombey, or as Mr. Dombey
would have looked if he had served a few years in the British Army. Mr.
Daw was a colonel in the late war, commanding the regiment in which his
son was a lieutenant. Plucky old boy, backbone of New Hampshire granite.
Before taking his leave, the colonel delivered himself of an invitation
as if he were issuing a general order. Miss Daw has a few friends
coming, at 4 p.m., to play croquet on the lawn (parade-ground) and have
tea (cold rations) on the piazza. Will we honor them with our company?
(or be sent to the guard-house.) My father declines on the plea of
ill-health. My father's son bows with as much suavity as he knows, and
accepts.

In my next I shall have something to tell you. I shall have