iage, with the blue sky
and its white clouds and circling birds, he thought of the rapture and
ecstasy which would have come to him, if she had listened to his words,
and had given him but a smile of encouragement.

But here came Mrs Null, with a fat brown book in her hand. "One of the
funniest things," she said, as she came to the door, "is Mr Salmon's
chapter on paradoxes. He thinks it would be quite improper to issue a
book of this kind without alluding to geographical paradoxes. Listen to
this one." And then she read to him the elucidation of the apparent
paradox that there is a certain place in this world where the wind
always blows from the south; and another explaining the statement that
in certain cannibal islands the people eat themselves. "There is
something he says about Virginia," said she, turning over the pages,
"which I want you to be sure to read."

"Won't you sit down," said Lawrence, "and read to me some of those
extracts? You know just where to find them."

"That chair wasn't put there for me," said Miss Annie, with a smile.

"Nonsense," said Lawrence. "Won't you please sit down? I ought to have
asked you before. Perhaps it is too cool for you, out there."

"Oh, not at all," said she. "The air is still quite warm." And she took
her seat on the chair which was placed close to the door-step, and she
read to him some of the surprising and interesting facts which Mr Salmon
had heard, in a Dublin coffee-house, about Virginia and the other
colonies, and also some of those relating to the kindly way in which
slave-holders in South America, when they killed a slave to feed their
hounds, would send a quarter to a neighbor, expecting some day to
receive a similar favor in return. When they had laughed over these, she
read some very odd and surprising statements about Southern Europe, and
the people of far-away lands; and so she went on, from one thing to
another, talking a good deal about what she had read, and always on the
point of stopping and giving the book to Lawrence, until the short
autumnal afternoon began to draw to its close, and he told her that it
was growing too chilly for her to sit out on the grass any longer.

"Very well," said she, closing the book, and handing it to him, "you can
read the rest of it yourself, and if you want any other books on the
list, just let me know by Uncle Isham, and I will send them to you. He
is coming now to see after you. I wonder," she said, stopping for a
mo