e! How finely
proportioned, how full of vitality! Then her face grew troubled as she
saw them in earnest conversation. Just as she was wishing she had not
trusted her precious girl with so much of a stranger, she saw Elnora
stoop to lift a branch and peer under. The mother grew content. Elnora
was thinking only of her work. She was to be trusted utterly.

CHAPTER XVI

WHEREIN THE LIMBERLOST SINGS FOR PHILIP, AND THE TALKING TREES TELL
GREAT SECRETS

A few days later Philip handed Elnora a sheet of paper and she read: "In
your condition I should think the moth hunting and life at that cabin
would be very good for you, but for any sake keep away from that
Grosbeak person, and don't come home with your head full of granger
ideas. No doubt he has a remarkable voice, but I can't bear untrained
singers, and don't you get the idea that a June song is perennial. You
are not hearing the music he will make when the four babies have the
scarlet fever and the measles, and the gadding wife leaves him at home
to care for them then. Poor soul, I pity her! How she exists where
rampant cows bellow at you, frogs croak, mosquitoes consume you, the
butter goes to oil in summer and bricks in winter, while the pump
freezes every day, and there is no earthly amusement, and no society!
Poor things! Can't you influence him to move? No wonder she gads when
she has a chance! I should die. If you are thinking of settling in the
country, think also of a woman who is satisfied with white and brown to
accompany you! Brown! Of all deadly colours! I should go mad in brown."

Elnora laughed while she read. Her face was dimpling, as she returned
the sheet. "Who's ahead?" she asked.

"Who do you think?" he parried.

"She is," said Elnora. "Are you going to tell her in your next that R.
B. Grosbeak is a bird, and that he probably will spend the winter in a
wild plum thicket in Tennessee?"

"No," said Philip. "I shall tell her that I understand her ideas of
life perfectly, and, of course, I never shall ask her to deal with oily
butter and frozen pumps--"

"--and measley babies," interpolated Elnora.

"Exactly!" said Philip. "At the same time I find so much to
counterbalance those things, that I should not object to bearing them
myself, in view of the recompense. Where do we go and what do we do
to-day?"

"We will have to hunt beside the roads and around the edge of the
Limberlost to-day," said Elnora. "Mother is making strawberry pres