She is asleep now—­for the sake of the Secret.  After she had gone to bed, what with the spectacle of the rabbits and what with our talk beforehand of the many cardinals in the cedars, my thoughts began to run freshly on old subjects, and, unlocking my bureau, I got out my notes and drawings for the work on Kentucky birds.  Georgiana does not know that they exist; she never shall.  With what authority those studies call me still, as with a trumpet from the skies! and I know that trumpet will sound on till my ears are past hearing.  Sometimes I look upon myself as a man who has had two hearts; one lies buried in the woods, and the other sits at the fireside thinking of it.  But sleep on, Georgiana—­mother that is to be.  The dreams of your life shall never be disturbed by the old dreams of mine.

VI

The population of this town on yesterday was seven thousand nine hundred and twenty; today it is seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty-one.  The inhabitants of the globe are enriched by the same stupendous unit; the solar system must adjust itself to new laws of equilibrium; the choir of angels is sweetened by the advent of another musician.  During the night Georgiana bore a son—­not during the night, but at dawn, and amid such singing of birds that every tree in the yard became a dew-hung belfry of chimes, ringing a welcome to the heir of this old house and of these old trees—­to the dispenser of seed during winters to come—­to the proprietor of a whole race of seed-scatterers as long as nature shall be harsh and seasons shall return.

I had already bought the largest family Bible in the town as a repository for his name, Adam Cobb Moss, which in clear euphony is most fit to be enrolled among the sweetly sounding vocables of the Hebrew children.  The page for the registration of later births in my family is so large and the lines ruled across it are so many that I am deeply mortified over this solitary entry at the top.  But surely Georgiana and I would have to live far past the ages of Abraham and Sarah to fill it with the requisite wealth of offspring, beginning as we do, and being without divine assistance.  When the name of our eldest-born is inscribed in this Bible, not far away will be found a scene in the home of his first parents, Georgiana and I being only the last of these, and giving, as it were, merely the finishing Kentucky touch to his Jewish origin.

But I gambol in spirit like a hawk in the air.  Let me hood myself with parental cares:  I have been a sire for half a day.