“Oh, Peter, what do you think?  I have got acquainted with the Awkward Man at last.  I never thought it would be so easy.  Yesterday Aunt Olivia wanted some ferns, so I went back to the maple woods to get them for her, and I found some lovely ones by the spring.  And while I was sitting there, looking into the spring who should come along but the Awkward Man himself.  He sat right down beside me and began to talk.  I never was so surprised in my life.  We had a very interesting talk, and I told him two of my best stories, and a great many of my secrets into the bargain.  They may say what they like, but he was not one bit shy or awkward, and he has beautiful eyes.  He did not tell me any of his secrets, but I believe he will some day.  Of course I never said a word about his Alice-room.  But I gave him a hint about his little brown book.  I said I loved poetry and often felt like writing it, and then I said, ’Do you ever feel like that, Mr. Dale?’ He said, yes, he sometimes felt that way, but he did not mention the brown book.  I thought he might have.  But after all I don’t like people who tell you everything the first time you meet them, like Sara Ray.  When he went away he said, ’I hope I shall have the pleasure of meeting you again,’ just as seriously and politely as if I was a grown-up young lady.  I am sure he could never have said it if I had been really grown up.  I told him it was likely he would and that he wasn’t to mind if I had a longer skirt on next time, because I’d be just the same person.

“I told the children a beautiful new fairy story to-day.  I made them go to the spruce wood to hear it.  A spruce wood is the proper place to tell fairy stories in.  Felicity says she can’t see that it makes any difference where you tell them, but oh, it does.  I wish you had been there to hear it too, but when you are well I will tell it over again for you.

“I am going to call the southernwood ‘appleringie’ after this.  Beverley says that is what they call it in Scotland, and I think it sounds so much more poetical than southernwood.  Felicity says the right name is ‘Boy’s Love,’ but I think that sounds silly.

“Oh, Peter, shadows are such pretty things.  The orchard is full of them this very minute.  Sometimes they are so still you would think them asleep.  Then they go laughing and skipping.  Outside, in the oat field, they are always chasing each other.  They are the wild shadows.  The shadows in the orchard are the tame shadows.

“Everything seems to be rather tired growing except the spruces and chrysanthemums in Aunt Olivia’s garden.  The sunshine is so thick and yellow and lazy, and the crickets sing all day long.  The birds are nearly all gone and most of the maple leaves have fallen.