A week ago a change came over him; he became morose and silent, and yesterday when I was admiring, half aloud, the reflection of a beautiful scarlet oak mirrored in the still backwater of the river, he paused in the kneeling position in which he was loosening the grasp of a white flowering dogwood, and first throwing out his arms and then beating his chest with them, exclaimed—"Other good have trees and water than for the eye to see; they can surely hang and drown the man the heart of whom holds much sorrow, and that man is I!"

Of course I knew that it was something a little out of the ordinary state of affairs that had sent a man of his capability to tramp about as a vagrant sort of labourer, but I had no previous idea that melancholy had taken such a grip upon him. Much do I prefer Larry, with periods of hilarity ending in peaceful "shlape." Certain peoples have their peculiar racial characteristics, but after all, love of an occasional drink seems a more natural proposition than a tendency to suicide, while as to the relative value of the labour itself, that is always an individual not a racial matter.

I too am feeling the domestic lure of cooler weather. All the day I wish to be in the open, but when the earlier twilight closes in, the house, with its lamps, hearth fires, and voices, weaves a new spell about me, though having once opened wide the door of outdoors it can never be closed.

Do you remember the Masque of Pandora, and the mysterious chest?

"Pandora
Hast thou never

Lifted the lid?

Epimetheus
The oracle forbids.

Safely concealed there from all mortal eyes
Forever sleeps the secret of the Gods.
Seek not to know what they have hidden from thee
Till they themselves reveal it."

Bart was reading it aloud to me last night. Prose read aloud always frets me, because one's mind travels so much faster than the spoken words and arrives at the conclusion, even if not always the right one, long before the printed climax is reached; but with good poetry it is different—the thoughts are so crystallized that the sound of a melodious voice liberates them more swiftly.

Verily Pandora's Chest has been opened this season here in the garden; the gods were evidently not unwilling and turned the lock for me, though perhaps I have thrown back the cover too rashly, for out has flown, instead of dire disaster, ambition in a flock of winged ideals, hopes, and wishes masquerading cleverly as necessities, that will keep me alert in trying to overtake and capture them all my life long.

Last night, once again comfortably settled in the den, we took inventory of the season's doings, and unlike most ventures, find there is nothing to write upon the nether page that records loss. Of the money set aside for the improvement of the knoll half yet remains, allowing for the finishing of the tree transplanting. Into this remainder we are preparing to tuck the filling for the rose bed, a goodly store of lily bulbs, some flowering shrubs, an openwork wire fence to be a vine-covered screen betwixt us and the road, instead of the broken rattling pickets, a new harness for Romeo to wear when he returns home, as a thank offering for his comfortable services (really the bridle of the old one is quite scratched to bits upon the various trees and rough fence rails to which he has been tethered), and last of all, what do you think? Three guesses may be easily wasted without hitting the mark, for instead of, as we expected, tearing down the old barn, our summer camp, we are going to remodel it to be a permanent outdoor shelter. It is to have a wide chimney and fireplace at one end, before which our beds may be drawn campfire fashion if it is too cool, and adjustable shutters so that it may be either merely a roof or a fairly substantial cabin and at all possible seasons a study and playroom for us all. Then too we shall overlook "Maria Maxwell's Experiment," as Bart calls her scheme of running the Opal Farm. We were heartily glad to know that she had leased and not bought it, but we were much surprised to learn, first through the village paper, and not the man and woman concerned, that "Mr. Ross Blake, the engineer in charge of the construction of the new reservoir, believing in the future of the real-estate boom in Woodridge (we didn't know there was one), has recently purchased the Amos Opie farm as an investment, the deed being to-day recorded in the town house. He has already leased it for a young ladies' seminary, pending its remodelling, for which he himself is drawing the plans."

Dear Man from Everywhere! much as I like Maria, I think he would be the more restful neighbour of the two. What a complete couple they might have made, but that is a bit of drift thought that I have put out of my head, for if any two people ever had a chance this summer to fall in love if they had the capacity, it was Maria and The Man, and the strange part of it is that as far as may be known neither is nourishing the sentiment of a melancholy past and no other present man or woman stands between; perhaps it is some uncanny Opal spell that stays them. Yet even as it is, in this farm restoration both are unconsciously preparing to take a peep into Pandora's Chest full of the unknown, so let us hope the gods are willing.

Hallowe'en. The Infant and Anastasia, her memories revived by Larry's voluble and personally adapted folk-lore, are preparing all sorts of traps and feasts for good luck and fairies, while Lady Lazy is content to look at the log fire and plan for putting the garden to sleep. Yesterday I finished taking up my collection of peonies, Iris, and hardy chrysanthemums that had been "promised" at various farm gardens beyond the river woods, and duly cleared off my indebtednesses for the same with a varied assortment of articles ranging from gladioli bulbs, which seem to multiply by cube root here, to a pair of curling tongs, an article long coveted by a simple-minded woman of more than middle age, for the resuscitation of her Sunday front locks, and which though willing to acquire by barter she, as a deacon's wife, had a prejudice against buying openly over the counter.