her! who has the
beautiful and soothing Southern genius for doing the most comfortable
thing for the moment, regardless of consequences, the Infant for months
after will expect to be sung to sleep, my hand cuddled against her
cheek, until I develop laryngitis from continued vocal struggles with
'Ole Uncle Ned,' 'Down in de Cane Brake,' and 'De Possum and de Coon.'

"This mental and verbal struggle was brought to an end yesterday by _The
Man from Everywhere_. Do you remember, that was the title that we gave
Ross Blake, the engineer, two summers ago, when you and Evan visited us,
because he was continually turning up and always from some new quarter?
Just now he has been put in charge of the construction of the reservoir
that is to do away with our beloved piece of wild-flower river woods in
the valley below Three Brothers Hills.

"As usual he turned up unexpectedly with Bartram Saturday afternoon and
'made camp,' as a matter of course. A most soothing sort of person is
this same _Man from Everywhere_, and a special dispensation to any woman
whose husband's best friend he chances to be, as in my case, for a man
who is as well satisfied with crackers, cheese, and ale as with your
very best company spread, praises the daintiness of your guest chamber,
but sleeps equally sound in a hammock swung in the Infant's attic
play-room, is not to be met every day in this age of finnickiness. Then
again he has the gift of saying the right thing at difficult moments,
and meaning it too, and though a born rover, has an almost feminine
sympathy for the little dilemmas of housekeeping that are so vital to us
and yet are of no moment to the masculine mind. Yes, I do admire him
immensely, and only wish I saw an opportunity of marrying him either
into the family or the immediate neighbourhood, for though he is nearly
forty, he is neither a misanthrope nor a woman hater, but rather seems
to have set himself a difficult ideal and had limited opportunities.
Once, not long ago, I asked him why he did not marry. 'Because,' he
answered, 'I can only marry a perfectly frank woman, and the few of that
clan I have met, since there has been anything in my pocket to back my
wish, have always been married!'

"'I have noticed that too,' said Bart, whom I did not know was
listening; 'then there is nothing for us to do but find you a widow!'

"'No, that will not do, either; I want born, not acquired, frankness,
for that is only another term for expedien