ct with the occult and the unknown.

"She went out by the back door," continued Miss Emmeline, "and I ran
to the window and saw her gray-blanketed figure disappear down the
lane, behind the hedge that separates Mr. Jelnik's grounds from
yours. And all the Hyndses called: '_Jessamine, good-by!_' But she
never turned her head once, nor spoke, nor gave a sign that she
heard. She just _went_, leaving me staring after her. I stared so
hard that I woke myself up. Now, my dears, wasn't that an odd sort
of dream? And so vivid, too! Why, I can hear those voices yet!"

"Well, I'm glad she went," said Alicia. "Ladies that do up their
heads in blankets and won't answer when they're spoken to, ought to
go."

Mrs. Scarboro, Judge Gatchell, and one of my old ladies were dining
with us that night, for which I thanked Heaven. Judge Gatchell
discovered in himself a fund of sly humor that astonished everybody,
and Miss Emmeline was like a November rose, sweet with a shy and
belated girlishness, rarer for a touch of frost. And The Author was
in a fairly good humor because they let him alone.

Mr. Nicholas Jelnik dutifully put in his appearance after dinner.
The Author was balefully polite to him, Alicia shyly friendly. I had
on a new frock, and the knowledge that it was becoming gave me a
courage I should otherwise have lacked. A new frock, pink powder,
and a smile, have saved many a fainting feminine soul where prayer
and fasting had failed.

The gentleman who had blandly announced my engagement to himself
only last night assumed no airs of proprietorship, but was placidly
content to let me sit and talk to Mr. Johnson, who was holding forth
on the merits of our Rhode Island Reds as against either barred
Plymouth Rocks or White Leghorns, and the variety of vegetables and
small fruits in our kitchen-garden, so admirably planned by Schmetz,
so carefully and neighborly looked after both by him and Riedriech.
From gardens, Mr. Johnson went to cattle; he had a delight in cows,
and our cow was a Jersey with a cream-colored complexion, large
black eyes, and the sentimental temperament. We called her the
Kissing Cow, because she couldn't see the secretary without trying
to bestow upon him slobbering salutes.

He paused in his homely talk to smile at something The Author had
just said. Then his eyes strayed to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, being
talked to by Mrs. Scarboro and an apple-faced Confederate with
pellucid blue eyes and a renowned trigger-