“Warm climates and rich soils, where little labor is required to gain a subsistence, engender habits of indolence; now, though your climate is not very warm, yet I think that the original richness of your soil and the convenience of your gangs of negroes, first seduced your planters into their slovenly habits of cultivation—do you not think so?” Sophie burst into tears. Her soft heart had been filling for the last half hour, and it ran over in tears! First a start of surprise, then a bright smile, then a quick glance around the room, and a bowed head and a low whisper in Sophie’s ear. “_Sophie!_ the rooms are close and crowded, come, walk in the grapery with me!” and drawing her arm through his own, he led her forth into the yard, down that long shaded grape walk that led from the cottage porch through the yard to the cottage gate. They paused at the gate, separated, turned and looked at each other; the moon was shining full upon their faces, they could see each other serenely and distinctly. It was no longer Captain Augustus Wilde, bristling in his new uniform, and with a long string of U. S. N.’s at the end of his name, and it was no longer Mrs. Withers; but no—_she_ had _never_ changed, or even _seemed_ to change. It was the Sophie and Gusty Wilde of eight years before! and as he gazed at her, the light kept leaping in his eyes, and, “_Oh, Sophie! my Sophie!_” and opening his arms he caught her to his bosom and kissed! oh! he kissed her forehead, eyes, and lips, as though his lips would have grown there! and then holding her head a little off upon his arm, the better to gaze upon her, he looked down delightedly into her happy, smiling face, for it _was_ a happy, smiling face now, and he said, “Oh, my dear Sophie! this is _deep joy_, this is _charming comicality_, too! It _is_, you little brown-eyed witch! To think that scarcely five minutes ago, you and I were sitting in yonder crowded drawing-room, talking of _farming_ and _agriculture_, and calling each other ‘sir’ and ‘madam,’ ‘Mrs. Withers’ and ‘Captain Wilde,’ with our bursting hearts covered over with conventional trivialities, as people might cover a mine with straw and stubble, with a paper wall between us, which your flood of tears washed down. God _bless_ those tears! God _bless_ those eyes that had no single glance—those lips that had no single tone for pride or deception, my own dear Sophie! You are more affectionate, more tender, more gentle, more natural than I am, my own sweet-lipped, gentle-eyed Sophie!” and he drew her closely and kissed her again, but there was less ardor, more tenderness, and less passion and more affection in this caress.