Letters

"The South thrills and calls. After all, though I was born in the Adirondacks, I am Southern, every inch of me. The Westfalls have been Florida folk since the beginning of time.

"There is an interesting nomad in a picturesque suit of corduroy who crosses my path from time to time with an eccentric music-machine. Sometimes I see him gravely organ-grinding for a crowd of youngsters, sometimes--with an innate courtliness characteristic of him--for a white-haired couple by a garden gate. He is wandering about in search of health. Oddly, his way lies, too, through Kentucky and Tennessee, to Florida. He--and Ann, dear, this confidence of his I must beg you to respect, as I know you will--is a Hungarian nobleman, picturesquely disguised because of some political quarrel with his country. He writes excellent verse in French and Latin, is a clever linguist, and has a marvelous fund of knowledge about birds and flowers. Altogether he is a cultured, courtly, handsome man whom I have found vastly entertaining. Romantic, isn't it?

"A letter to Eadsville, Kentucky, will reach me if you write as soon as this reaches you.

"Ever yours, "Diane."

Let him who is more versed in the science of a nomad's mind than I, say why there was no mention of the hay-camp!

Ann's answer came in course of time to Eadsville. As Ann talked in sprightly italics, so was her letter made striking and emphatic by numberless underlinings.