XI. 



THE IDYL OF AN EMPTY LOT. 

 A CITY STUDY. 



Opposite my study windows is an empty lot. 

 It is of generous size ; six residences facing 

 another street, with high board fences, stretch 

 across the back ; a large apartment-house towers 

 above it on the right, and a tight fence defines 

 it on the left. The front is open to the street, 

 but the whole is so given up to weeds, such a 

 tangle of rank vegetation, that few people pene- 

 trate it, and it is the great out-of-doors for the 

 animal life of the neighborhood. Looking down 

 upon it as I do, constantly spread out under my 

 windows, I cannot choose but see everything 

 that goes on. 



Last summer was the blossoming-time of the 

 empty lot. It had but one summer of romance 

 — just one — between the building of the brick 

 row behind it and the beginning of the new row 

 which shall hide it from the sun for ages, per- 

 haps. 



It was not attractive in the spring, for man 

 had done what he could to deface it. Here is a 



