. So Cousin Patty does not depend upon
the land. She read in some of her magazines of a woman who had made a
fortune in wedding cake. She resolved that what one woman could do
could be done by another. Hence she makes and sells wedding cake, and
while she has not made a fortune she has made a living. She began by
asking friends for orders; she now gets orders from near and far.

So all day there is the good smell of baking in the house, and the
sound of the whisking of eggs. And every day little boxes have to be
filled. Will you smile when I tell you that I like the filling of the
little boxes? And that while we talk o' nights, I busy myself with
this task, while Cousin Patty does things with narrow white ribbon and
bits of artificial orange blossoms, so that the packages which go out
may be as beautiful and bride-y as possible.

It is strange, when one thinks of it, that I came to your house on a
wedding night, and here I live in a perpetual atmosphere of wedding
blisses.

In the morning I write. In the afternoon I do other things. The
weather is not cold--it is dry and sunshiny--windless. I take long
walks over the hills and far away. Some of it is desolate country
where the boxed pines have fallen, or where an area has been burned but
one comes now and then upon groves of shimmering and shining young
trees,--is there any tree as beautiful as a young pine with the
sunshine on it?

It is rare to find a grove of old pines, yet there are one or two
estates where for years no trees have been cut or burned, and beneath
these tall old singing monarchs I sit on the brown needles, and write
and write--to what end I know not.

I have not one finished story to show you, though the beginnings of
many. The pen is not my medium. My thoughts seem to dry up when I try
to put them on paper. It is when I talk that I grow most eloquent.
Oh, little friend, shall I ever make the world listen again?

I am going to tell you presently of those who have listened, down
here--such an audience--and in such an amphitheater!

My walks take me far afield. The roads are sandy, and I do not always
follow them, preferring, rather, the dunes which remind me so much of
those by the sea. Once upon a time this ground was the ocean's bed--I
have the feeling always that just beyond the low hills I shall glimpse
the blue.

Now and then I meet some darkey of the old school with his cheery
greeting; now and then on the highroad a sc