t in twain between her mother's suitor and her brother's
guest.

A most pestiferous variety of caterpillar has infested the tops of my
cherry-trees this summer, and during the general's encampment near Mrs.
Cobb I happened several times to be mounted on my step-ladder, busy
with my pruning-shears, when he was decoying her around her
garden--just over the fence--buckled in to suffocation, and with his
long epaulettes golden in the sun like tassels of the corn. I was
engaged in exterminating this insect on the last day of his sojourn.
They were passing almost beneath me on the other side; he had been
talking; I heard her brief reply, in a voice low and full of dignity,

"I have been married, sir!"

"Mother of Georgiana!" I cried, within myself. But had she ever
thought of taking a second husband she must have seen through "Old
Drumbeater," as Sylvia called him. There were times when their
breakfast would be late--for the sake of letting his chicken be broiled
in slow perfection or his rolls or waffles come to a faultless brown;
and I, being at work near the garden fence, would hear him tramping up
and down the walk on the other side and swearing at a family that had
such irregular meals. The camel, a lean beast, requires an
extraordinary supply of food, which it proceeds to store away in its
hump as nourishment to be drawn upon while it is crossing the desert.
There may be no long campaigning before the general; but if there were
and rations were short, why could he not live upon his own back? It is
of a thickness, a roundness, and an impenetrability that would have
justified Jackson in using him as a cotton-bale at the battle of New
Orleans.

Thus in my little corner of the world we have all been at the same
business of love, and I wonder whether the corner be not the world
itself: Mrs. Cobb and the general, Georgiana and I the sewing-girl and
the carpenter; for I had forgotten to note how quickly these two have
found out that they want each other. My arbor is at his service, if he
wishes it; and Jack shall keep silent about the mastodon.

It is true that from this sentimental enumeration I have omitted the
name of Mrs. Walters; but there is a secret here which not even
Georgiana herself will ever get from me. Mrs. Walters came to this
town twenty years ago from the region of Bowling Green. Some years
afterwards I made a trip into that part of the State to hear the
mocking-bird--for it fills those more sout