The Heart's Kingdom

paradise. The present is her time for action; and again, Charlotte, I ask you to name the day upon which you intend to marry me," said Nickol

s words about religion, words that made me tingle all over," I answered as I threw my coat on a chair, lifted my hat from my head and sat down on the seat

n race. That's why I took you over to hear the little baseball player. I wanted you to get a s

to my father and forget it," I reiterated with a kind of numb

he, but I know just as many of the wiles of the world and the flesh as he does and maybe a few more," Nicko

t understand. I must go home to m

can read only an unconnected word here and there when he can get his flashlight thrown into the depths-if he dares adventure

on of the world if she could spell them out herself, or some great a

g, slender, artist's fingers up and down the keys of the piano, which evoked a strange, diabolical sort of harmony from them. "I understand about it all, s

some queer part of my anatomy that lies between my breast bone and my spinal column. Something is

Nickols, with a laugh that wa

a home panic a

nswer from what is left

get it-under the roof of the Popla

by what, nor to what. I only knew that I felt full of a living, smothered flame a

ars, and of a very beautiful and haughty woman whose own mother, to the day of her death, shouted at Methodist

t with Aunt Clara. "Cousin Nickols has spent many months out of three years on the plans of restoration for that garden, and he is coming down soon to sketch and photograph it to use in some of his commissions. What shall I-what will you-say to

ere with Nickols' carefully planned view. Gregory Goodloe spent many days of thought in seeking to place it so that it would not intrude itself upon your gard

ehind my hollyhocks?" I demanded, and my rage began to merge into actu

s devotedly sympathized with my exhibitions of temperament, to which he had, from my infancy, given the name of "tantrums," set the platter of fried chicken before father's place at the damask and silver-spread old table by the wi

rooned soothingly, "an' yo' Mammy done p

ods with choice food and was trying

ered at the tempta

ering and seated himself opposite me as Dabney pushed in my chair and whisked the cover off the silver sugar b

offee down upon it so that a scalding splatter peppered my hand. "I never want to see or hear or speak to or about him. I'll build a trellis as high as his church, run evergreen honeysuckle on it and go my way in an opposite direction from his. I'll-" Just here I observed consternation spread over Dab

the steps that led down from the long windows in the dining room to the old flagstone walk. Nickols and I had searched through volumes of dusty antique prints to see just how we wanted that wal

yes and then stopped perfectly still

e only with

l pledge

ant morning sunbeams, in a voice of the most penetrating

father faltered, while Dabney ducked his cott

ct of the words of my favorite song of songs hurled at me by the unseen enemy, when

rehension and then beckons me to follow. All other men I have grouped beyond the border of my feminine nature and sought to waste no thought upon them. It was a shock to come, suddenly, in my own breakfast room, face to face with a type of man I had never before met. The enemy was astonishingly large and lithe and distinctly resembled one of the big gold-colored lions that live in the wilds of the Harpeth Mountains out beyond Paradise Ridge. His head, with its tawny thatch that ought to have waved majestically but which was sleek and decorous to the point of worldliness, was poised on his neck and shoulders with a

te," father announced, as he rose and waved in my dir

my hand in his. "Dabney has let me help him hand-weed them and they are a glory, aren't they?" While he sp

y hospitality as if intent upon effectively bottling me up, at least for the immediate present. "She was just pouring

in the world from which I had come that I felt as if I was slipping back into the days of the pione

aced fingers, the mountain lion bowed his crested head and involved me

ss thereof ... for which we give thanks

arrassment, and against my will, as it were, a quee

gain took stock of him, this time coldly and with deadly intent. The reasons for his entry into my hitherto satisfactory family life, even at breakfast time, I did not know, any more than I knew the reason for the chapel on the other side of the hollyhocks, but I felt that I feared both and intended to get rid of them. If the enemy had been what one could reasonably expect a young Methodist preacher to be, I would have routed him and his meekness within the hour and had the chapel mo

odloe?" I asked, with seemingly careless friendliness. "Dabney,

thus denying the morning friend of his lifetime. I had never drunk a julep before breakfast in my life, only tasted around the frosty edges of father's, but I held my ground, an

odloe?" I asked again with still

u know frost is a thing that soon passes," was the cheerful answer, though a suspicion of

I don't remember what else happened at that breakfast except that I wanted to clutch and cling to the warm, strong hand that I again found mine in at the time of parting. But I didn't; at least, I don'

he dear friends whom many generations had bestowed upon me, sitting on the foot of my bed consuming the last of the box of marrons with which Nickols had provisioned my journey down from New York. I was glad

New York?" she demanded as she sniffed me suspici

ut my bare arms to give her a good shake and a hug. "'You may break, you may shatter the glass if you will, but the scent of

, as she likewise drew her knees up into her arms and settled herself against one of the posts of my bed for the

before his eyes, and then I don't rem

ha

rld to faze me, and I don't like it anyway, but Dabney was so impressed by His Worship that he poured it double for me before I h

odloe? Oh,

want to? I had well over a pint of champagne with a Mr. Justice two nights before I left New York and I stopped then out of courtesy to one

you came?" Letitia queried cautiously, as if fe

d is it any wonder I went down? Go on. Tell me the worst or the best. I'm ready." And as I spoke I set