One consolation remains to me in the wreck of my romantic hopes for
her--Miss Lavinia has liked our neighbourhood so well that she has taken
the Alton cottage that she now occupies on a three years' lease, and
intends living here from May to October. The rambling garden is full of
old-time, hardy plants and roses, and oh, what good times we shall have
together there next spring, for of course she will stop with me when she
is getting things in order, and I can spare her enough roots and cuttings
to fill every spare inch of ground,--so, with Sylvia at Pine Ridge, what
more can I ask? The strain and hubbub of the Bluffs seems to be quite
vanishing from the foreground and merging with the horizon.
That reminds me that the people are drifting back quite rapidly now. The
golfers are afield again Sundays, and all talk of introducing fox hunting
with tame foxes; but they will have to learn the land, with its dips and
rocks, better first, or there will be a pretty crop of cracked crowns for
father. At present, I think that New England Prejudice will soon however
get the upper hand here, and tighten her hold of the reins that seemed
slipping from her grasp, which is well, for she has long borne aloft the
only standard of national morality whose code is not a sliding scale.
* * * * *
_September_ 9. Martin came back to-night. As he entered the house with
Evan I positively did not know him, for he has shaved off his mustache
and queer little pussy-cat whiskers, and with them has gone his
"pudgyness.
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