Hilary, stepping back to keep her in sight, was suddenly aware of the family coachman close at his side. Together they moved warily a few steps farther. "You mus' escuse me, Cap'n," the negro amiably whispered. "You all right, o' co'se! Yit dese days, wid no white gen'leman apputtainin' onto de place--" "Old man!" panted Hilary, "you've saved my life!" "Oh, my Lawd, no! Cap'n, I--" "Yes, you have! I was just going into fits! Now step in and fetch me out here--" He shaped his arms fantastically and twiddled his fingers. Bending with noiseless laughter the negro nodded and went. Just within her window, Anna, still in reverie, sat down at a slender desk, unlocked a drawer, then a second one inside it, and drew forth--no mere secret page but--a whole diary! "To Anna, from Miranda, Christmas, 1860." Slowly she took up a pen, as gradually laid it by again, and opposite various dates let her eyes rest on--not this, though it was still true: "The more we see of Flora, the more we like her." Nor this: "Heard a great, but awful, sermon on the duty of resisting Northern oppression." But this: "Connie thinks he 'inclines' to me. Ho! all he's ever said has been for his far-away friend. I wish he would incline, or else go ten times as far away! Only not to the war--God forbid! Ah, me, how I long for his inclining! And while I long he laughs, and the more he laughs the more I long, for I never, never so doted on any one's laugh. Oh, shame! to love before--" What sound was that below? No mocking-bird note, no south wind in the foliage, but the kiss of fingers on strings! Warily it stole in at the window, while softly as an acacia the diary closed its leaves. The bent head stirred not, but a thrill answered through the hearer's frame as a second cadence ventured up and in and a voice followed it in song. Tremblingly the book slid into the drawer, inner and outer lock clicked whisperingly, and gliding to a door she harkened for any step of the household, while she drank the strains, her bosom heaving with equal alarm and rapture. If any song is good which serves a lover's ends we need claim no more for the one that rose to Anna on the odors of the garden and drove her about the room, darting, clinging, fluttering, returning, like her own terrified bird above her in its cage. When Sylvia sighs And veils the worshipped wonder Of her blue eyes Their sacred curtains under, Naught can so nigh please me as my tender anguish. Only grief can ease me while those lashes languish. Woe best beguiles; Mirth, wait thou other whiles; Thou shalt borrow all my sorrow When Sylvia smiles.