"
"I suppose so," said the girl rather dolefully and too near to the tears
she had been sternly taught to suppress.
"Isn't it queer," he said, "how people think about the same things? I was
just going to speak of Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim. Uncle Jim often talks to
me and to Mr. Rivers about the election, but if I say a word or ask a
question at table, Aunt Ann says, 'we don't talk politics.'"
"But once, John, I heard Mr. Rivers say that slavery was a curse and
wicked. Uncle Jim, he said Aunt Ann's people held slaves, and he didn't
want to talk about it. I couldn't hear the rest. I told you once about
this."
"How you hear things, Leila. Prince Fine Ear was a trifle to you."
"Who was Prince Fine Ear?" she asked.
"Oh, he was the fairy prince who could hear the grass grow and the roses
talk. It's a pretty French fairy tale."
"What a gabble there must be in the garden, John."
"It doesn't need Prince Fine Ear to hear. Don't these big pines talk to
you sometimes, and the wind in the pines--the winds--?"
"No, they don't, but Lucy does."
Something like a feeling of disappointment faintly disturbed the play of
his fancies. "Let us go to the graves."
"Yes, all right, come."
They got no further than the cabin and again sat down near by, Leila
carelessly gathering the early golden-rod in her lap as they sat leaning
against the cabin logs.
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