son on one of these acres. My heart went out to our forefathers who cultivated the land with crow-bars, picks, and sledge-hammers, at Plymouth and along the bleak ridges of New Hampshire.

But Mr. Mills did not hesitate or falter as he pointed out a field of alfalfa that stretched away from Laguna Blanca to the foothills beyond. "We cut that eight or nine times a year, averaging a ton per acre to the cutting and it is worth from $8 to $11 per ton on the ground." I had my experience on an Eastern farm, and this was too much. After that I was ready to believe anything.

On June 2nd of last year one of our farmers cut a crop of hay, plowed the ground, and planted it to corn the same day. On the first of September he had corn 151⁄2 feet high that averaged six large ears to the stock."

.

Then I heard about a bunch of green dates weighing sixty pounds, apples 1534 inches in circumference, pears three pounds and two ounces each, potatoes ten and one half pounds, squash 273% pounds. Mentally I compared that squash to an aunt who weighed something less, but was too large for an ordinary chair. It was preposterous.

I had hoped to cover our Southern trip in one article, but I have found it as difficult to get away from the memory of Santa Barbara and its beautiful Battle of Flowers and to begin anew with Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Mt. Lowe, and the rest, as it was to say goodby to its hospitable people and charming homes. the day we turned our faces toward the undiscovered country farther south.

A land of beauty it would seem.
A still and everlasting dream.

Rounsevelle Wildman.

D. T. Callahan.

June 10th.

ALETTER from brother Cyrus's

LETTER from brother Cyrus's wife today with a mixture of good and bad news; the bad news is that brother Cy is in wretched health, and the good is that the doctors have advised him to spend summer in the North, and that he is coming to us right away. I have seen very little. of my oldest brother since I was wed, for after the war he married a Southern woman and they went back to Missouri to live many years ago; but he was always my favorite, and I shall be awfully pleased to be with him once more. I wish sister Betty were coming too, but she thinks she must stay and look after the plantation. I am very fond of Betty Brooke, though I don't know why; her faults are obvious to the most casual observer, and as for principles, she has n't any, in the New England sense of the word; their place is supplied with that sense of obligation to oneself that we mean when we say, " noblesse oblige." Neither has she any opinions, though you always think she has while you are talking to her and that they are exactly like yours, and I suppose that is one secret of her charm. She never does flatter you, but you always feel that you are appreciated when she is by; she never says anything brilliant or original, but then you do when you are in her sympathetic company, which is better. In short, when her large, composed personality enters the room you feel at once that the world is a very comfortable place to be in, and that you are one of its brightest ornaments. Yes indeed, I wish sister Betty were coming.

June 18th. Brother Cyrus does not seem well, indeed, and since he came three days ago he has not done much but lounge around on sofa or easy chair and talk to me. He has aged a good deal since I last saw him. Well, why should he not? I am getting on towards that middle mile stone in the journey where a woman parts with the haunting wraith of her youth and begins to count her sheaves, if she have any; and he is nearly twenty years my senior. His kindly eye are like my father's and linger pleasantly on you even when he is not speaking to you. That Ostrom woman bores me: she might know we had plenty to talk about these first few days; but she has such a way of taking her welcome for granted that you really have n't the heart to snub her. So she comes as usual and sits by the hour with her drawn-work and smiles sympathetically while Cy and I recall this or that long-forgotten trifle and laugh or sigh over it, until he checks himself apologetically and tries to make the conversation inclusive of the visitor. Today she insisted upon it that we should spend the evening with her. I was about to decline on the self-evident ground of Cy's indisposition, but to my surprise he said he should be very happy, etc.

"It is only just across the street, Sis," he said in answer to my look of surprise, "and I am sure Mrs. Ostrom will pardon us if we take our leave early."

If Valeria Ostrom tries any of her nonsense on my elderly brother, I will well, what will I do? He is old enough to take care of himself. And Valeria's attachments are strictly platonic.

At

June 23d. While Mrs. Sanders and I were gossiping over the fence this morning, Dottie sidled up to her mother and remarked. "I saw Howard playing ball across the street, and I wanted to go over, but I told myself mamma would be mad if I did."

"That is mamma's good girl," said Mrs. Sanders, caressing her delightedly. "Of course you did not go then, did you, Dottie?" I inquired.

Oh, yes, I went," she said. "Why Dorothy!" cried her crestfallen mamma, and proceeded to inculcate moral precepts appropriate to the occasion, whilst I turned my back and busied myself over a rose bush. Mrs. Sanders may as well spare her breath. Miss Dorothy will take her fun as she goes along through life and do her penance afterwards; which is the sensible way. For the fun you have had is the only thing Fate can't cheat you of.

When I walked around the house, I found brother Cy reposing himself in the hammock the while Mrs. Ostrom read aloud to him,- Lucille, if you please. I think she felt a little flat herself, for she gave me to understand that the performance was "by request." I sat down on

the top step and leaned back against a pillar, with hands clasped around it above my head, and watched the pastoral scene. Mrs. Ostrom took up her drawn work and pursued it with composure, but brother Cy seemed a little uneasy. Finally he said, "Sis, don't you know that it is an uncomfortable habit you have acquired, of staring at people without speaking?"

Cy is a man without a vice, he does not smoke, or drink, or gamble, or swear; he adores his wife, and he was the loveliest brother to me that any girl ever had; but he has his weaknesses. And they are all of the feminine gender. It was only yesterday he and Mrs. Ostrom were trying to convince me of the merits of platonic friendships. Mrs. Ostrom is an ardent believer in them, and we have had many a discussion anent the subject; for while I don't deny their possibility, my own experiences have been such as to make me rather skeptical as to their existence. Now that she has a new recruit to her standard who is even more enthusiastic than herself, I am likely to have a convincing demonstration of their advantages.

June 28th. This morning as Dorothy and I were having a dish of strawberries out on the kitchen stoop in the shade of the honey-suckle, Mrs. Ostrom came wandering around in her print morning gown, extremely desirous to ask my opinion about some samples for a new costume. Dottie is very fond of Howard, but for some reason she has a prejudice against his mamma; and just at that moment she resented being disturbed, so she remarked casually: "I think you come over here too soonly every morning; has n't you anything to do at your own house, like mamma?" Now what argument would convince the victim of a speech like that, that the infant was not reproducing like a phonograph?

Yesterday when I went into my drawing room there were my brother and my friend, sitting on a couch with a volume of Doré open on their knees, looking at the illustrations together. Mrs. Ostrom regarded me with a limpid smile and remarked that she had been waiting some time for me to make my appearance, and brother Cy, with his old fashioned courtesy that never permits him to sit while a woman stands, rose and handed me a chair. He did not resume his former seat, although the lady was temporarily supporting his half of the volume, with the evident expectation that he would do

so.

"Permit me," said he, and relieved her of the bulky tome.

In conducting her little platonic affairs Mrs. Ostrom always proceeds on the principle of "Honi soit qui mal y pense," and what are you going to do about it? We all have our little ways, and her little way is utter openness and simplicity. Her big almond eyes, drooping downward at the outer corners, are unabashed as a child's while she prattles of love and friendship, eternal affinities, and constancy beyond the grave. She skates over thin ice with such unconsciousness of mien that the beholder can but wonder and admire.

July 10th. My brother Cyrus finds many occasions to call on the opposite corner. They ought to have that guileless friendship established on a pretty firm basis by this time. It was only today that I was over, and picked up a volume of Swinburne in Madam's boudoir. On the fly leaf was this:

The stars come nightly to the sky,
The tidal wave unto the sea;

Nor time, nor place, nor deep, nor high,
Can keep my own away from me.
It was my brother Cy's handwriting.
I turned the pages, and found all the
most ardent passages in the book scored

with pencil. I am not prudish, but if such a book, so lined, were presented to me, I should ask myself very seriously what opinion the donor had of me that he should presume so far. When I told Harry about it, he snorted. "Cyrus Brooke ought not to be going about without a guardian," said he. "Jimmie Ostrom is a fool, but some day when he does wake up he will make it confoundedly unpleasant for whoever is the devotee of the hour."

"There you are again!" exclaimed Harry. "The best and most refined of you women don't respect a man unless he shows you the brute in him occasionally. "

I shall write to sister Betty and offer her inducements to come North. Herbert is at home now, and he certainly can look after the plantation.

Thursday, July 26th. Sister Betty has arrived. She has already found the chair and the corner that please her best, and there she sits, big and placid, with her needle-work, and lets the world revolve around her. The chair and the corner happen to be in the big window in the library, which by some sort of instinct she discovered the very day of her arrival to be of all places in the house the one that is always cool and airy and desirable, morning and afternoon and evening; and as chance or fate will have it, it also commands the approaches to the house of the lady who reads Swinburne. So that if brother Cyrus wishes now to call informally, at odd hours of morning or afternoon, he must make a detour and come from the other street. It may be uncalled for, but I have a sickening suspicion that he does that very thing. Meanwhile Valeria's manners are perfect.

Nothing could be better than her cordial courtesy to the sister-in-law of her dear friend, Mrs. Isham.

August 11th. Every day, sister Betty sits in the window in a white negligee costume and looks cool while the rest of us tell each other how hot it is. She is an exquisite needle-woman, and it is a fascination to watch her beautiful hands, as without haste or abruptness, smoothly, suavely, she folds her hem, or lays her gathers, and sets the needle in and draws it out with a graceful curve of her plump wrists. For her hands are beautiful; large but shapely, white as milk and soft as satin; when she is not doing anything in particular she draws on a pair of old gloves, which she keeps in her work basket, and wears them for a half hour or so. She has unique way of holding her thumb in towards the palm, that lessens the apparent size of the hand, and puts a dimple at the joint; it looks like an affectation, but it is n't. Dottie hangs about her and watches every stitch at the imminent risk of getting her small nose pricked, trying to fathom the mysterious connection between needle. and thimble; which latter she calls sometimes the "needle-spoon," and sometimes the "finger-hat," two names of her own invention. Whether sister Betty has any doubts anent our neighbor over the way I cannot tell. None can guess what lies under such a still surface. That lymphatic temperament is a great advantage to a woman; your nervous people infallibly give away their emotions prematurely.

Tuesday evening. I have had to explain to Sarah that Mrs. Brooke was born a slave owner; but I don't know as I have mended matters much in doing So. To begin with, sister Betty "calls her out of her name."

"I can't be bothered remembering all of their names," says Bettty. "Mary

is a good enough name; I call them all Mary.'

Accordingly it is: "Mary, go up stairs and bring me down a fresh handkerchief. Where are they? O, look for it, and you will find it somewhere.

"Mary take my gown that I wore yesterday and give it a good dusting before you put it away; and my shoes, have them brushed, and there are a couple of buttons off, sew them on."

"I don't so much mind doing the things for her," says indignant Sarah, "though it is not my business. But is the way she speaks to me, as if I were a thing."

And so she is, precisely, in Betty's estimation. Outside of those favored ones who bask as equals in the sunshine of Betty's regard, all the people in the world are merely things; ignored unless they get in the way, as the inherent depravity of things causes them to occasionally, and then to be brushed aside, with no more exertion than necessary, and never thought of again. I think it is that indifference to the population in general, and all its doings, rather than any Christian feeling, which makes sister Betty so little of a gossip. She never discusses her neighbor's affairs; and so rarely does her speech savor of rancor, that today at the lunch table, when she remarked calmly that Mrs. Ostrom was. "too ingenuous to be trusted," it had all the effect of a denunciation from another woman. Brother Cyrus looked very queer and said nothing, and it gave me such a shock that I forgot to swallow and nearly strangled in consequence.

August 15th. That dreadful Dottie has laid a train to the powder magazine today, and I can only sit in terror waiting for the result. She brought over a new story book, and insisted that I should read it to her, as her mamma was too busy. As I turned the pages, she remarked,