And therefore, these things, for aught I see, being unalterably so, I will take children’s love, woman’s love, and man’s friendship; man’s friendship, which, if it is not life’s poetry, is credible prose, says George Meredith,—'a land of low undulations, instead of Alps, beyond the terrors and deceptions.' That will fill to overflowing my life, already so full, and in time I shall grow from everybody’s Mistress Mary into everybody’s Mother Mary, and that will be the end of me in my present state of being. I am happy, yes, I am blessedly happy in this prospect, and yet"—
•••••••
Another day.—"My beloved work! How beautiful it is! Toniella has not brought little Nino this week. She says he is ill, but that he sits every day in the orchard, singing our songs and modeling birds from the lump of clay we sent him. When I heard that phrase 'in the orchard,' I felt a curious sensation, for I know they live in a tenement house; but I said nothing, and went to visit them.
"The orchard is a few plants in pots and pans on a projecting window-sill!
"My heart went down on its knees when
