long time, holding my hand and smoothing my forehead, and urging
me to try a cream poultice--a mustard-plaster--a bowl of gruel--a
broiled chicken.

I believe Georgiana thinks I'll ask her again. Not if I lived by
her through eternity! Thy rod and Thy staff--_they_ comfort me.



XV


A Poor devil will ask a woman to marry him. She will refuse him.
The day after she will meet him as serenely as if he had asked her
for a pin.

It is now May 15th, and I have not spoken to Georgians when I've
had a chance. She has been entirely too happy, to judge from her
singing, for me to get along with under the circumstances. But
this morning, as I was planting a hedge inside my fence under her
window, she leaned over and said, as though nothing were wrong
between us, "What are you planting?"

I have sometimes thought that Georgiana can ask more questions than
Socrates.

"A hedge."

"What for?"