Reaches out to shift the scene,
And the brooks begin to warble in the dell;
When the waking fields are fluffy
And the meadow-lands are green,
And the tassels on the trees begin to swell.
Ah, these are times that try men’s hearts; but poor Harry, he is so timid; why I should have called her down a month ago, if I had his hand.
She is too honest to encourage him if she doesn’t really care for him, but she must, she can’t help it, he is almost an ideal young man. Maybe that is where he falls down; I’ve heard it said that a man who is too nice, is never popular with the ladies. Perhaps that is why you and I are pouring our own coffee to-day. Swinburne says—
“There is a bitterness in things too sweet.”
Polly’s father is here. He brought a Chicago capitalist with him, and the Sure Thing has been sold for sixty-one thousand dollars. I was sorry to learn of the sale, for it will take away from the camp one of the richest and rarest flowers that has ever adorned these hills.
Since the great fire, we have all moved to the Tortoni, on the border of the Bad Lands. The parlor is very small, and last night when Harry and the “Silver Queen,” as we call her now, were talking while I pretended to be reading a newspaper, I could not help hearing some of the things they said. Harry wanted her photograph, but she would not give it. She said she never gave her pictures to young men, under any circumstances. When she found a young man with whom she could trust her photo, she said she would give him the original. Harry said something very softly then; I did not hear what it was, but she said very plainly, very seriously, that she would let him know before she left.