his years, it would be that through life he continue as wise as the day
he was born.


The third of June once more. Rain fell all yesterday, all last night.
This morning earth and sky are dark and chill. The plants are bowed
down, and no wind releases them from their burden of large white drops.
About the yard the red-rose bushes fall away from the fences, the
lilacs stand with their purple clusters hanging down as heavily as
clusters of purple grapes. I hear the young orioles calling drearily
from wet nests under dripping boughs. A plaintive piping of lost
little chickens comes from the long grass.

How unlike the day is to the third of June two years ago. I was in the
strawberry bed that crystalline morning; Georgiana came to the window,
and I beheld her for the first time. How unlike the same day one year
back. Again I was in the strawberry bed, again Georgiana came to
window and spoke to me as before. This morning as I tipped into her
room where she lay in bed, she turned her face to me on the pillow, and
for the third time she said, fondly;

"Old man, are you the gardener?"

The sky being so blanketed with cloud, although the shutters were open
only a faint gray light filled the room. It was the first day that she
had been well enough to have it done; but now the bed in which
Georgiana lay was spread with the most beautiful draperies of white;
the pillows were rich with needle-work and lace, and for the first time
she had put on the badge of her new dignity, a little white cap of
ribbons and lace, the long wide streamers of which, edged with lace,