XI. 



THE IDYL OP 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 



