hrough which I walk in the
September fields--the rotting wastage of harvests long since gathered
in. At other times I drive myself upon their sharp and piercing
conflicts as a bird is blown uselessly again and again by some too
strong a wind upon the spikes of the thorn. I hear the angry talk of
our farmers and merchants, I listen to the fiery orations of our
statesmen and the warning sermons of our divines. (Think of a human
creature calling himself a divine.) The troubled ebb and flow of
events in Kentucky, the larger movements of unrest throughout the great
republic--these have replaced for me the old communings with nature
that were full of music and of peace.

Evening after evening now I turn my conversations with Georgiana as
gayly as I can upon some topic of the time. She is not always pleased
with what I style my researches into civilized society. One evening in
particular our talk was long and serious, beginning in shallows and
then steering for deep waters.

"Well, Georgiana," I had said, "Miss Delia Webster has suddenly
returned to her home in Vermont."

"And who is Miss Delia Webster?" she had inquired, with unmistakable
acidity.

"Miss Delia Webster is the lady who was sentenced to the State
penitentiary for abducting our silly old servants into Ohio. But the
jury of Kentucky noblemen who returned the verdict--being married men,
and long used to forgiving a woman anything--petitioned the governor to
pardon Miss Delia on the ground that she belongs to the sex that can do
no wrong--and be punished for it. Whereupon the governor, seasoned to
the like large experience, pardoned the lady. Whereupon Miss Webster,
having passed a few weeks in the penitentiary, left, as I stated, for
her home in Vermont, followed by her father, who does not, however,
seem to have been able to overtake her."

"If she'd been a man, now," suggested Georgiana.

"If she'd been a man she would have shared the fortunes of her
principal, the Reverend Mr. Fairbanks, who has _not_ returned to his
home in Ohio, and will not--for fifteen years."

"Do you think it an agreeable subject of conversation?" inquired
Georgiana.

"Then I will change it," I said. "The other day the editor of the
Smithland _Bee_ was walking along the street with his little daughter
and was shot down by a doctor."

"Horrible!" exclaimed Georgiana. "Why?"

"Self-defence," I answered. "And last week in the court-room in Mount
Sterling a man was sh