air. It stands back from the road, and has an obsequious retinue of
fringed elms and oaks and weeping willows. Sometimes in the
morning, and oftener in the afternoon, when the sun has withdrawn
from that part of the mansions, a young woman appears on the piazza
with some mysterious Penelope web of embroidery in her hand, or a
book. There is a hammock over there--of pineapple fibre, it looks
from here. A hammock is very becoming when one is eighteen, and has
golden hair, and dark eyes, and an emerald-colored illusion dress
looped up after the fashion of a Dresden china shepherdess, and is
chaussee like a belle of the time of Louis Quatorze. All this
splendor goes into that hammock, and sways there like a pond-lily
in the golden afternoon. The window of my bedroom looks down on
that piazza--and so do I.

But enough of the nonsense, which ill becomes a sedate young
attorney taking his vacation with an invalid father. Drop me a
line, dear Jack, and tell me how you really are. State your case.
Write me a long, quite letter. If you are violent or abusive, I'll
take the law to you.


III.

JOHN FLEMMING TO EDWARD DELANEY.

August 11, 1872.

Your letter, dear Ned, was a godsend. Fancy what a fix I am in--I,
who never had a day's sickness since I was born. My left leg weighs
three tons. It is embalmed in spices and smothered in layers of