One veteran porter, who has been here ever since I was born, has a polite but improbable trick of addressing _every_ female passenger as "my lady." Well, with regard to _me_, at least, he is right now.

I _am_ "my lady." Ha! ha! I have not nearly got over the ridiculousness of this fact yet, though I have been in possession of it now these _four_ whole weeks.
It has been a hot, parching summer day, and now that the night draws on all the flagging flowers in the cottage-borders are straightening themselves anew, and lifting their leaves to the dews.

The pale bean-flowers, in the broad bean-fields, as we pass, send their delicate scent over the hedge to me, as if it were some fair and courteous speech.

To me it seems as if they were saying, as plainly as may be, "Welcome home, Nancy!" The sky that has been all of one hue during the live-long day--wherever you looked, nothing but pale, _pale_ azure--is now like the palette of some God-painter splashed and freaked with all manner of great and noble colors--a most regal blaze of gold--wide plains of crimson, as if all heaven were flashing at some high thought--little feathery cloud-islands of tenderest rose-pink.

We are coming very near now.