St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, is indeed an old man, a little lame, leaning on a cane. He is much over six feet tall, when straightened, and with a smooth shaven countenance, but looking as Abraham Lincoln might have done, had he lived into another century and grown grayer with no other sign of the passing of the years. St. Friend, the Giver of Bread, receives Avanel as a favorite daughter and convert and indeed I feel in the air the justification for my estimate of this girl. In his presence she puts aside all vestige of nonsense. It is Church to her to be with him. St. Friend disgraces himself by taking the oldest kind of a corncob pipe from a shelf inside the fireplace and smoking like a chimney. He asks Avanel if she cares and she says, “No, certainly not.” We get to the matter of the flags quite late in the evening. St. Friend tells how in his youth when Apple-Amaranth blossoms had as now a touch of red in the hearts, those hearts began to be called, “The Blood of Hunter Kelly,” and St. Friend suggests that the saying be restored to its former place on the tongues of Springfield, especially since the red and white star in the municipal flag is copied from this flower. Then much of what he and Avanel have to say to each other about the flag he declares he will put into his next sermon. It is plain to me that this gray mind leans for vitality upon the mind of the proud young child. She knows it not but only thinks herself a kind of playmate in a solemn way. On the way home Avanel is much ashamed of herself for staying so long and says that I am an awkward lummox, and I can walk home my own way. Therefore I make my speech, as I take her sternly to her door. She holds herself straight as a ramrod, with lips stubbornly pursed together, as I say: “Your name is Springfield. If there is any banner of the soul flying above me, your name is written on it and the white is the pride that makes you so angry and the red is the strength that makes you an Amazon, and the blue of the flag is the prairie sky, of which you are the vainest, loveliest daughter.” Avanel goes into the house with a sharp “Goodnight.” May 8:—It is a blazing spring day and everything that was not frosted is getting quite green. Baby carriages are abroad, with the pink darlings crowing within them, welcoming the sun. The streets are full of spring finery. About four o’clock on this jolly afternoon I meet Rabbi Terence Ezekiel in Tom Strong’s. We fill up on rousing coffee and I manage to get the conversation around to the Springfield flag about which I am endlessly curious. The Rabbi says:—“The star of red and white in the heart of the flag, being the twenty-first star in the design, indicates, in the official interpretation, that Illinois was the twenty-first state admitted to the Union and the red part indicates Springfield, the capital.” But Rabbi Ezekiel prefers the idea that this red and white star indicates in the year 2018 the coming of age of Illinois and America.