ts subtilties are
largely composed of touch and silence.

I myself, being wholly responsible for the present whist combination, of
course could say nothing except to myself and the moon. What a hoard of
personal reminiscences and heart to heart confessions the simpering old
thing must have stored away behind her placid countenance. It is a wonder
that no enterprising journal has syndicated her memoirs by wireless
telegraphy for the exclusive use of their Sunday issue.

I resolved that I must wait awhile, and then if this silence lasted many
evenings, I must hunt up a game of cards that takes only two. How could I
get out of the room without appearing to be in a huff or bored? Ah! a
wordless excuse; a slight noise upstairs. Ian sometimes walks in his
sleep. I go up and sit in my window and look out through the diamond
panes at the garden. Ian stirs and mutters something about a drink. I
hasten to get it, and he, gripping the glass with his teeth, swallows
eagerly, with a clicking noise in his throat.

"Is your throat sore?" I ask apprehensively. He opens his eyes, realizes
where he is, nestles his head into my neck and whispers,--

"Not zactly lumpy sore, Barbara, just crusty, 'cause I made--lots of
dandelion curls wif my tongue to-day, and they're--velly--sour," and with
a satisfied yawn he rolled back on his pillow, into the funny
spread-eagle attitude peculiar to himself, but Richard slept peacefully
on like a picture child, cheek on hand, and the other little
dandelion-stained paw above the sheet.

(N.B.--When one's husband and father together take to serious whist of a
moonlight night in spring, twins are not only an advantage but a
necessity.)

I have searched the encyclopedia for the description of an intellectual
game of cards, arranged as a duet, and found one. It is piquet! Now I
can wait developments peacefully, for are there not also in reserve
chess, checkers, backgammon, and--jackstraws?

* * * * *

_June_ 2. A gentle summer shower at sunset after a perfect day has filled
the world with fragrance and song, for do the birds ever sing so
perfectly with such serene full-noted ecstasy as after the rains of May
and June? Or is it the clearness of the air after the rain that transmits
each note in full, prisoning nothing of its value?

To-night I am unhappy. Perhaps that is an exaggeration, and perplexed is
the better word, and it is only in pages of my social experience b