in-covered tray, from which towered twin pillars of
glass, topped with fragrant leafage and pierced each by a yellow straw.
This tray he placed upon the table beside the poems of Lord Byron, and
the minister permitted himself an oblique look thereat, even though this
involved deserting the eyes of his agreeable hostess. The ice in the
glasses tinkled a brief phrase of music, the tops burgeoned with a
luxuriant summer green, and the straws were of a sweetly pastoral
suggestiveness. The fragrance moved one to the heart of some
spice-scented dell where a brooklet purled down a pebbled course. The
ensemble was indeed overwhelming in its message of a refreshment joyous,
satisfying, timely, and of a consummate innocence.

"The day is warm," said Miss Caroline, receiving one of the glasses from
her servant, and with a bright look at her guest.

"It is intensely warm, and quite unusually so for this time of year,"
said the minister, absently taking the other glass now proffered him.

"We shall combat it," said Miss Caroline with some vivacity. She
delicately applied her lips to the straw, and a slight depression
appeared in each of her acceptable cheeks.

"A cooling beverage at this hour is most grateful," said the minister,
rejoicing in the icy feel of the glass, and falling hopefully to his own
straw.

"Clem makes them perfectly," said Miss Caroline.

"What do you call them?" asked the minister. He had relinquished his
straw, and his kind face shone with a pleased surprise.

"Why, mint juleps," replied Miss Caroline, glancing quickly up.

"Ah, mint! that explains it," said the minister with satisfaction, his
broad face clearing of a slight bewilderment.

"Clem found a beautiful patch of it by a spring half a mile up the
river," volunteered Miss Caroline, between dainty pulls at her straw.

"It is a lovely plant--a _lovely_ plant, indeed!" rejoined the minister,
for a moment setting down his glass to wipe his brow. "I remember now
detecting the same fragrance when I watered my horse at that spring. But
I did not dream that it--I wonder--" he broke off, taking up his
glass--"that its virtues are not more widely apprehended. I have never
heard that an acceptable beverage might be made from it."

"Not every one can make a mint julep as Clem can," said his hostess.

A moist and futile splutter from the bottom of the minister's glass was
his only reply.

He set the glass back on the table with a pleasant speculation s