Martin Cortright stayed to luncheon to-day.  Not that it is an unusual occurrence, but he wished to have a long afternoon to finish reading a certain portion of his manuscript to Miss Lavinia before her flitting in the morning.

We were seated at the table when she came in hurriedly, apologizing for being late, saying that she had become so absorbed in finishing her letters that she did not realize that it was even noon.  I did not look at her particularly until a few moments later, when Martin, after fussing with his bread a good deal, looked up and said, with a charming smile, “What a very becoming gown you have on to-day, Miss Lavinia.”

“Yes,” said father, “I was thinking precisely the same thing myself, so you see that in spite of our condemning your sex for paying so much attention to clothes, we men are the first to note the result of them.”

Miss Lavinia looked puzzled.  She was too much the politic woman of the world to say that the dimity gown was the same one that she had worn for the two or three days previous; besides, the fact would have cast a doubt upon their judgment, and she was particular in all such little details of good breeding; so she parried the compliment deftly, and straightway fell to pondering as to what circumstance the remark might refer.  Glancing toward the open window, she caught a reflection of herself where the glass, backed by the dark green curtain, made a mirror.  She had forgotten to rearrange her hair, and her burnished silver-shot locks remained rolled back lightly from her white forehead without the ugly, concealing front!  I rejoiced inwardly, for the spontaneous tribute to the improvement by those two dear, stupid, discriminating men, has settled the fronts in a way in which no arguments of mine could, for to-night she came to dinner not only with her own emancipated hair, but wearing a bit of red geranium stuck fetchingly in the puff.

* * * * *

August 1.  Sylvia has returned, and Miss Lavinia has gone to her, Lucy and the portly cook having arrived from New York last night, in company with Josephus, confined in a large hamper borrowed from the fishmonger, in the top of which a ventilator had been introduced.  Josephus was naturally indignant when first let out, and switched his tail in wrath, declining to recognize his mistress, and starting to explore the house like an evil spirit.  This morning I found him calmly perched on our woodshed roof, gazing wickedly at the boys’ banty chickens in the coop below.  I predict that he gets into trouble, unless his silver collar, like a badge of aristocracy, protects him.  But what can you expect of a misguided Whirlpool cat, whose only conception of a bird is a dusty street sparrow, when he meets face to face the delicious and whetting elusiveness of a banty chick or a young robin.

Poor Sylvia is nervously tired out, and the month’s rest will be a real boon.  Her plans are quite settled, and there is nothing for her to do but rest until the time comes to carry them out.  She and Horace are to be married the last week in August, so that they will have time for a Canadian trip before College begins and they return to settle down in a scrap of a house in Northbridge.