n from West Point the son of the
family, who cut _off_--or cut _at_--Georgiana's toes, I remember.
With him a sort of cousin, who lives in New York State; and after
a few days of toploftical strutting around town, and a pussillanimous
crack or two over the back-garden fence at my birds, they went away
again, to the home of this New York cousin, carrying Georgiana with
them to spend the summer.

Nothing has happened since. Only Sylvia and I have been making hay
while the sun shines--or does not shine, if one chooses to regard
Georgiana's absence in that cloudy fashion. Sylvia's ordinary armor
consists of a slate-pencil for a spear, a slate for a shield, and
a volume of Sir Walter for a battle-axe. Now and then I have found
her sitting alone in the arbor with the drooping air of Lucy Ashton
beside the fountain; and she would be better pleased if I met her
clandestinely there in cloak and plume with the deadly complexion
of Ravenswood.

The other day I caught her toiling at something, and she admitted
being at work on a poem which would be about half as long as the
"Lay of the Last Minstrel." She read me the opening lines, after
that bland habit of young writer; and as nearly as I recollect,
they began as follows:

"I love to have gardens, I love to have plants, I love to have
air, and I love to have ants."

When not under the spell of mediaeval chivalry she prattles needlessly
of Georgiana, early life, and their old home in Henderson. Although
I have pointed out to her the gross impropriety of her conduct, she
has persisted in reading me some of Georgiana's letters, written
from the home of that New York cousin, whose mother they are now
visiting. I didn't like _him_ particularly. Sylvia relates that
he was a favorite of her father's.

The dull month passes to-day. One thing I have secretly wished to
learn; did her brother cut Georgiana's toes entirely off?

VIII

In August the pale and delicate poetry of the Kentucky land makes
itself felt as silence and repose. Still skies, still woods, still
sheets of forest water, still flocks and herds, long lanes winding
without the sound of a traveller through fields of the universal
brooding stillness. The sun no longer blazing, but muffled in a
veil of palest blue. No more black clouds rumbling and rushing up
from the horizon, but a single white one brushing slowly against
the zenith like the lost wing of a swan. Far beneath it the
silver-breasted