the great music, and as the poets
usually do not. People presume that the ear for rhythm is the same as
that for music. They are things apart. A few poets have had both."

"That seems strange," said John. "I have neither," and he was lost in
thought until Rivers, as usual easily tired, said, "Let us sit down. How
hazy the air is, John! It tenderly flatters these wild colour-contrasts.
It is like a November day of the Indian summer."

"Why do they call it Indian summer?" asked John.

"I do not know. I tried in vain to run it down in the dictionaries. In
Canada it is known as 'L'ete de St. Martin.'"

"It seems," said John, "as if the decay of the year had ceased, in pity.
It is so beautiful and so new to me. I feel sometimes when I am alone in
these woods as if something was going to happen. Did you ever feel that,
sir?"

Rivers was silent for a moment. The lad's power to state things in speech
and his incapacity to put his thoughts in writing had often puzzled the
tutor. "Why don't you put such reflections into verse, John? It's good
practice in English."

"I can't--I've tried."

"Try again."

"No," said John decidedly. "Do look at those maples, Mr. Rivers--and the
oaks--and the variety of colour in the sassafras. Did you ever notice how
its leaves differ in shape?"

"I never did, but nothing is exactly the same as anything else. We talked
of that once."

"Then since the world began there never was another me or Leila?"

"Never. There is only one of anything."

John was silent--in thought of his unresemblance to any other John. "But
I am like Uncle Jim! Aunt says so."

"Yes, outwardly you are; but you have what he has not--imagination. It
is both friend and foe as may be. It may not be a good gift for a
soldier--at least one form of it. It may be the parent of fear--of
indecisions."

"But, Mr. Rivers, may it not work also for good and suggest
possibilities--let you into seeing what other men may do?"

The reflection seemed to Rivers not like the thought of so young a man.
He returned, "But I said it might be a friend and have practical uses in
life. I have not found it that myself. But some men have morbid
imagination. Let us walk." They went on again through the quiet splendour
of the woodlands.

"Uncle Jim is going away after the election."

"Yes."

"He will see Leila. Don't you miss her?"

"Yes, but not as you do. However, she will grow up and go by you and be a
woman while you are more slow