nts.

"Five days ago I heard a banging and pounding. Only that morning Lucy had
been told that the low, rambling carpenter's shop, that occupied a double
lot along the 'street to the southwest, had been sold, and we anxiously
waited developments. We were spared long suspense; for, on hearing the
noise, and going to the little tea-room extension where I keep my winter
plants, I saw a horde of men rapidly demolishing the shop, under
directions of a superintendent, who was absolutely sitting on top of my
honeysuckle trellis. After swallowing six times,--a trick father once
taught me to cure explosive speech,--I went down and asked him if he
could tell me to what use the lot was to be put. He replied: 'My job is
only to clean it up; but the plans call for a twelve-story
structure,--warehouse, I guess. But you needn't fret; it's to be
fireproof.'

"'Fireproof! What do I care?' I cried, gazing around my poor garden--or
rather I must have fairly snorted, for he looked down quickly and took in
the situation at a glance, gave a whistle and added: 'I see, you'll be
planted in; but, marm, that's what's got to happen in a pushing city--it
don't stop even for graveyards, but just plants 'em in.'

"My afternoon sun gone. Not for one minute in the day will its light rest
on my garden, and _finis_ is already written on it, and I see it an arid
mud bank. I wonder if you can realize, you open-air Barbara, with your
garden and fields and all space around you, how a city-bred woman, to
whom crowds are more vital than nature, still loves her back yard. I had
a cockney nature calendar planted in mine, that began with a bunch of
snowdrops, ran through hot poppy days, and ended in a glow of
chrysanthemums, but all the while I worked among these I felt the breath
of civilization about me and the solid pavement under my feet.

"I believe that every woman primarily has concealed in the three rounded
corners of her heart, waiting development, love of home, love of
children, and love of nature, and my nature love has yet only developed
to the size of a back yard.

"Yes, I will come to visit you at Oaklands gladly, though it's a poor
compliment under the circumstances. The mother of twins should be gone
_to_; but tremble! you may never get rid of me, for I may supplant Martha
Corkle, the miraculous, in spoiling the boys."

* * * * *

"February 1st.

"One more question to answer and this budget of letters will