f over-ripe
strawberries dying in the sun, late in summer--and that intoxicated with
its aroma as rare old wine does with its flavor.

It is not difficult to believe (par parenthese) that the pearls and
diamonds that dropped from the mouth of the good little princess in the
old fairy story, every time she opened the ruby portals of her lips,
dissolved themselves into air and came out in breath suggestive of
spice-fields and orange-groves, and that the toads and scorpions falling
from the mouth of her wicked sister manifested themselves in a
corresponding rank and fetid odor. So bear with us, lady of the fevered
breath, if we take the privilege of ago and long sight to drink in your
flood of pleasant wisdom from a distance; and think not your lover
overbold, Edie of the Red Lips, if he bends so near you when you speak,
that the waves of brown and the curls of black even nestle together!

"Another sermon, eh, Joseph?" said the invalid, trying to smile and
apparently soothed away from his pain by the very presence of the young
girl. "Another sermon just because I cannot _always_ remember that I am
a poor miserable wreck!"

"Miserable fiddlestick!" said Joe, smoothing down his hair with both
hands and accidentally stooping down so low that her lips came near
enough to his forehead to breathe on it and send a pleasant creeping
chill to the very tips of his toes. "I read you sermons, as you call
them, because you are very impatient and very imprudent, and because I
really have no one but yourself who is tied down so as not to be able to
run away when I begin preaching. Don't you see that?"

"Yes, I do!" said the invalid, whom she had unconsciously introduced to
us in calling him Dick Crawford--"I see!" and his face grew into a
transient smile in spite of himself. "But where is my sister, and what
was the music?"

"Two questions at once, like all the men!" the saucy girl answered. "But
go ahead, for asking questions won't hurt your rheumatism. Bell has gone
out shopping, I believe. She discovered an hour ago that there was a
shade of cerise ribbon somewhere or other that she had not managed to
get hold of, and of course she ordered the carriage at once and posted
after it. As for the music--oh, the music was a brass band accompanying
the One Hundred and Ninetieth Regiment. They are going to leave
to-morrow, and they came up the avenue to receive a set of colors from
Mrs. Pearl Dowlas, the ugly old woman with all that brow