The Heart's Kingdom

organ, as we all sat on the front porch of the Poplars in the warm spring sunlight several mornings after I had told them of Nickols' arrival on Frid

etitia Cockrell, as she drew a fine thread through a ruffle she was making to adorn some part of the person of

lvet violets on a gray chiffon scarf and was doing it with the zest of the newly liberated. Roger Henderson had had a lot of money that, in default of a will, the law gave mostly to Harriet, but in life he had not had the joy of see

its and handed out to the other men," was the serene answ

end of her needle, "don't ever, ever make the mistake of letting one of

y Harvey or Hampton Dibrell to keep me out until I'm late for dinner every time they pick me up for a little charitable spin. That and other deceptions have kept Mark Morgan uncertainly happy so far, but if I am pushed to the wa

lie?" asked Harriet, with serene interest as she bit off a t

ch everybody throws some kind of bone," remarked Jessie. Jessie always vigorously

's question. "She said she didn't mind the hour lost if the parson could give a 'wee bit of comfort' to your 'wrestling' soul. I didn't like to tell her that I thought it might be Mr. Goodloe who was wres

ort of inner warmth and he said that you had all you could do and would need help from me just as the women at the Settlement do. I'm going to present your Susan with a frock out of that linen and real Valenciennes I bought in the city last week for a blouse for my own self, and I'm going to give the making to that little Burns woman, who sews so beautifully and cheaply to support her seven offspring, while Mr. Burns supports 'The Last C

those four women and see what results I could get. I felt thi

"just why did you joi

as she poised a violet and ga

quarely, and my honesty

lieve in the church as an institution," s

id Nell, as she turned the fretting Suckling over on her knee and began another ser

one of you has in some way shown me how bored you are with the relation. That's all the case I have against your or any church-just that the members are bored. Also, do any of you get any help in y

new them and their lives with the cruel completeness it is given to friends to know each other in small towns like Goodloets and I could probe with a certain touch. And as they all s

as poor as she before the Phosphate Company gave him his managership. Nell and the babies are the nails driven in her heart every day and sh

generation nearer the pioneer woman and also had a nurse trained in slavery who was a wizard with children. Mark wants to have a lot of joy of life and so far he drags poor exhausted Nell with him. It is a question how long she can stand the social pace and the over-p

The children make him rage superficially and burn inwardly. He gambles and

he loves Hampton Dibrell and never looks in his direction or is a moment alone with him. He is in the unattac

will hang around Jessie, who encourages him, because she is lonely and considers him safely tied up with Letitia. Mr. Cockrell is the best lawyer i

y my mother died and I have always known that I was helpless to help him. The weakness was in him, only supported by her strength so long as she was there. He was the most brilliant mind in the state, and was one of the supreme judges when mother died. Now Mr. Cockrell manages his business for him and I have lately come t

there have been two United States congressmen and a senator of our house. Father is the last of the line. Because race instinct is the strongest in women, I am the one who suffers as I see my family die out. What is going to he

nable to decide whether he does or does not love me. In New York he lives his life among the artists and fashionable people with whom his highly successful profession throws him, and I don't see why he cares to come back here where he was born and reared, in pursuit of a woman like me. I am as elemental as a shock of wheat back on one of father's meadows and Nickols is completely evolved. He laughs at race pride and resents mine. For six months I had been in New York living with Aunt Clara in Uncle Jonathan Van Eyek's old house down on Gr

nd them, I mean, but it helps me to see that somebody truly believes that there i

le's inner shrines as she snapped a bit of tangled purple si

r-Oh, what is the matter now?" And as she finished speaking Nell Morgan arose and went with t

to his dirty little paddie, which she only let go to run and bury her cornsilk topknot in Harriet's outspread arms, where she was engulfed into safety until only the most delicious dimpled

al chords of Charlotte ceased reverberating and her c

rlotte gave forth this announcement with a diplomacy th

k?" demanded the

f the flagstones of the walk. I knew in an instant that that rock had never left the hand of small James, but the clash of Nell's wits with young Charlotte is so constant that at times the mater

-old witness from Harriet's chiffon and violets. I doubted if young

he graphic description of the crash she added as she squi

claimed Nell, i

dow. It was a nice round one, and he brought it from home to see if he could kill anything. It most kill

brevity with which he usually made res

s broke the window?" demanded Nell in still more

ld recover from our horror at the violence the young parson had suffered at the hands of the marauders, Charlotte had lined the other two up on either hand and begun her exhibition of t

r the nigh

gh the mor

the dew i

springing

perfect tune was so bewitchingly sweet that Harriet again engulfed her, while the outraged mother, not so easily beguiled, sailed

d citizens?" I asked myself in my depths, as I joined with the o

Jessie Litton, as she rose to her feet to begin leave-taking. "Yes, I mu

and Letitia followed to secure the short spin around the corner to the old Cockrell home, which was set back from the street behind a tall hedge of waxy-leaved Cherokee roses. Thus almost in the twinkling of an eye I was left alone, which state, howeve