hern groves, but never visits
ours; and while there I stepped by accident on this discovery: _There
never was any Mr. Walters_. It is her maiden name. But as I see the
freedom of her life and reflect upon the things that a widow can do and
an old maid cannot--with her own sex and with mine--I commend her
wisdom and leave her at peace. Indeed I have gone so far, when she has
asked for my sympathy, as to lament with her Mr. Walters's death.
After all, what great difference is there between her weeping for him
because he is no more, and her weeping for him because he never was?
After which she freshens herself up with another handkerchief, a little
Florida water, and a touch of May roses from the apothecary's.

And I have omitted the name of Sylvia; but then Sylvia's name, like
that of Lot's wife, can never be used as one of a class, and she
herself must always be spoken of alone. However, if Sylvia had been
Lot's wife she would not have turned to a pillar of salt, she would
most probably have become a geyser.

I don't know why, but she went on a visit to Henderson after that
evening in the arbor. I suspect the governing power of Georgiana's
wisdom to have been put forth here, for within a few days I received
from Sylvia a letter which she asked me not to show to Georgiana, and
in which she invited me to correspond with her secretly. The letter
was of a singularly adhesive quality as to the emotions. Throughout
she referred to herself as "the exile," although it was plain that she
wrote in the highest spirits; and in concluding she openly charged
Georgiana with having given her a black eye--a most unspeakable phrase,
surely picked up in the school-room. As a return for the black eye,
Sylvia said that she had composed a poem to herself, a copy of which
she enclosed.

I quote Sylvia's commemorative verses upon her wrongs and her
banishment. They show features of metrical excess, and can scarcely
claim to reflect the polish of her calmer art; but they are of value to
me as proving that whatever the rebuke Georgiana may have given, it had
rebounded from that elastic spirit.

LINES TO MYSELF

Oh! she was a lovely girl,
So pretty and so fair,
With gentle, love-lit _eyes_,
And wavy, dark brown hair.

I loved the gentle girl,
But, oh! I heaved a sigh
When first she told me she could see
Out of only _one_ eye.

But soon I thought within myself
I'd better save my tear and sigh