e country. It was his vote that brought me here."

Philip leaned back against the arbour, watching the grosbeak as it
hunted food between a tomato vine and a day lily. Elnora set him to
making labels, and when he finished them he asked permission to write
a letter. He took no pains to conceal his page, and from where she sat
opposite him, Elnora could not look his way without reading: "My dearest
Edith." He wrote busily for a time and then sat staring across the
garden.

"Have you run out of material so quickly?" asked Elnora.

"That's about it," said Philip. "I have said that I am getting well as
rapidly as possible, that the air is fine, the folks at Uncle Doc's all
well, and entirely too good to me; that I am spending most of my time
in the country helping catch moths for a collection, which is splendid
exercise; now I can't think of another thing that will be interesting."

There was a burst of exquisite notes in the maple.

"Put in the grosbeak," suggested Elnora. "Tell her you are so friendly
with him you feed him potato bugs."

Philip lowered the pen to the sheet, bent forward, then hesitated.

"Blest if I do!" he cried. "She'd think a grosbeak was a depraved person
with a large nose. She'd never dream that it was a black-robed lover,
with a breast of snow and a crimson heart. She doesn't care for hungry
babies and potato bugs. I shall write that to father. He will find it
delightful."

Elnora deftly picked up a moth, pinned it and placed its wings. She
straightened the antennae, drew each leg into position and set it in
perfectly lifelike manner. As she lifted her work to see if she had it
right, she glanced at Philip. He was still frowning and hesitating over
the paper.

"I dare you to let me dictate a couple of paragraphs."

"Done!" cried Philip. "Go slowly enough that I can write it."

Elnora laughed gleefully.

"I am writing this," she began, "in an old grape arbour in the country,
near a log cabin where I had my dinner. From where I sit I can see
directly into the home of the next-door neighbour on the west. His name
is R. B. Grosbeak. From all I have seen of him, he is a gentleman of
the old school; the oldest school there is, no doubt. He always wears a
black suit and cap and a white vest, decorated with one large red heart,
which I think must be the emblem of some ancient order. I have been here
a number of times, and I never have seen him wear anything else, or his
wife appear in other tha