/ID^ Minter (Barren 



people are not only lovable, but they love. 

 Nowhere else, probably, does the thought 

 of marriage so insistently betray itself in 

 man and maid ; wherefore we naturally 

 take a silent part in many a pretty little 

 romance. Love-passages so simple and 

 sincere that they scarcely seem a part of 

 real life, iridescent bubbles of frank passion 

 we might call them, shining a moment in 

 this Southern sunlight, then bursting to 

 nothingness with a twitter of girlish 

 laughter and the half-sullen yet always 

 flippant jocundity of a baffled boy, are 

 frequent as the billing of birds. But 

 coquetry finally yields to such seriousness 

 as matrimony demands, and the bell of our 

 village church is kept busy ringing for 

 weddings. Nor does this lavish marrying, 

 with its swift and generous result in pro- 

 geny, bring appreciable hardships to the 

 daring twain, who usually have but their 

 love and two pairs of somewhat indolent 

 hands for means of livelihood. Nature 

 takes care of her own in the low country, 

 where life can flaunt a gorgeous banner of 

 luxury on no capital beyond a mullet-net, a 

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