of taking me into
the country. High as our expectations were, the beauty of the place far
exceeded them all. What color! What glorious sunsets! And the long rides
we took, seeming to be utterly tireless in that fresh sweet air!

One afternoon I sat on the veranda at the western wing of the house. The
veranda here was broader than elsewhere, and it was reached only by a
flight of steps leading up from the lawn on one side, and by a door
opposite these steps that opened into Jack's study. The rest of this
veranda was enclosed by a high railing, and by wire nettings so thickly
overgrown with vines that the place was always very shady. I sat near
the steps, where I could watch the sweep of the great shadows thrown by
the clouds that were sailing before the west wind. Jack was inside,
writing, and now and then he would say something to me through the open
window. As I sat, lost in delight at the beauty of the view and the
sweetness of the flower-scented air, I marvelled that Aunt Agnes could
ever have left so charming a spot. "She must still love it," I thought,
getting up to move my chair to where I might see still further over the
prairies, "and some time she will come back----" At this moment I
happened to glance to the further end of the veranda, and there I saw,
to my amazement, a little child seated on the floor, playing with the
shifting shadows of the tangled creepers. It was a little girl in a
daintily embroidered white dress, with golden curls around her baby
head. As I still gazed, she suddenly turned, with a roguish toss of the
yellow hair, and fixed her serious blue eyes on me.

"Baby!" I cried. "Where did you come from? Where's your mamma, darling?"
And I took a step towards her.

"What's that, Silvia?" called Jack from within. I turned my head and saw
him sitting at his desk.

"Come quick, Jack; there's the loveliest baby--" I turned back to the
child, looked, blinked, and at this moment Jack stepped out beside me.

"Baby?" he inquired. "What on earth are you talking about, Silvia
dearest?"

"Why, but--" I exclaimed. "There _was_ one! How did she get away? She
was sitting right there when I called."

"A _baby_!" repeated my husband. "My dear, babies don't appear and
disappear like East-Indian magicians. You have been napping, and are
trying to conceal the shameful fact."

"Jack," I said, decisively, "don't you suppose I know a baby when I see
one? She was sitting right there, playing with the shadows,