Joan Silver-pin 321 



path, then by the shadowy fence-side toward the 

 barn. I was not wandering in the garden for sweet 

 moonlight, for there was none ; nor for love of 

 flowers, nor in admiration of any of nature's works, 

 for it wn very ccld ; we even spoke of frost, as we 

 ever :lr apprehensively on a chilly night in spring. 

 Th: kitten was lost. She was in the shrubbery at 

 the garden end, for I could hear her plaintive yowl- 

 ing; and I thus traced her. I gathered her up, purr- 

 ing and clawing, when I heard by my side a cross 

 rustling of leaves and another complaining voice. It 

 was the Crown-imperial, unmindful or unwitting of 

 my presence, and muttering peevishly : " Here I am, 

 out of fashion, and therefore out of the world ! torn 

 away from the honored border by the front door 

 path, and even set away from the broad garden beds, 

 and thrust with sunflowers and other plants of no 

 social position whatever down here behind the barn, 

 where, she dares to say, we * can all smell to heaven 

 together.' 



"What airs, forsooth ! these twentieth century chil- 

 dren put on ! Smell to heaven, indeed ! I wish her 

 grandfather could have heard her! He didn't make 

 such a fuss about smells when I was young, nor 

 did any one else ; no one's nose was so over-nice. 

 Every spring when I came up, glorious in my dress 

 of scarlet and green, and hung with my jewels of 

 pearls, they were all glad to see me and to smell me, 

 too ; and well they might be, for there was a rotten- 

 appley, old-potatoey smell in the cellar which per- 

 vaded the whole house when doors were closed. 

 And when the frost came up from the ground the 



