The excitement of the fire and Lamb’s flight had been unfavourable to literary composition, but now John returned to his letter.  He continued: 

“The reticule will have to be finished in town.  Uncle will take it after the election or send it to you.  If you remember your Latin, you will know that reticule comes from reticulus, a net.  But this isn’t really a net.

“We have had a big excitement.  Some one set fire to the parsonage and it burnt down.” [He did not tell her who set it on fire, although he knew very well that it was Peter Lamb.] “Lamb has run away, and I think we are well rid of him.

“I do miss you very much.  Mr. Rivers says you will be a fashionable young lady when you come back and will never snowball any more.  I don’t believe it.

“Yours truly,

“JOHN PENHALLOW.”

Mrs. Penhallow enclosed the letter in one of her own, and no answer came until she gave him a note at the end of October.  Leila wrote: 

“DEAR JOHN:  It is against the rules to write to any one but parents, and I am breaking the rules when I enclose this to you.  I do not think I ought to do it, and I will not again.

“You would not know me in my long skirts, and I wear my hair in two plaits.  The girls are all from the South and are very angry when they talk about the North.  I cannot answer them and am sorry I do not know more about politics, but I do know that Uncle Jim would not agree with them.

“I go on Saturdays and over Sundays to my cousins in Baltimore.  They say that the South will secede if Fremont should be elected.  I just hold my tongue and listen.

“Yours sincerely,

“LEILA GREY.

“P.S.  I shall be very proud of the bag.  I hope you are studying hard.”

“Indeed!” muttered John.  “Thanks, Miss Grey.”  There was no more of it.

John Penhallow had come by degrees to value the rare privilege of a walk with the too easily wearied clergyman, who had avenues of ready intellectual approach which invited the adventurous mind of the lad and were not in the mental topography of James Penhallow.  The cool, hazy days of late October had come with their splendour of colour-contrasts such as only the artist nature could make acceptable, and this year the autumn was unusually brilliant.

“Do you enjoy it?” asked Rivers.

“Oh, yes, sir.  I suppose every one does.”

“In a measure, as some people do the great music, and as the poets usually do not.  People presume that the ear for rhythm is the same as that for music.  They are things apart.  A few poets have had both.”

“That seems strange,” said John.  “I have neither,” and he was lost in thought until Rivers, as usual easily tired, said, “Let us sit down.  How hazy the air is, John!  It tenderly flatters these wild colour-contrasts.  It is like a November day of the Indian summer.”

“Why do they call it Indian summer?” asked John.