The Heart's Kingdom

t my arms and ward off something that seemed like danger to Nickols, standing down at the bottom of the steps, smiling up at us in the moonlight with his mocking, fascinating smi

ction of an instant when I had stood between the two men that I almost felt the sensation of alarm a second time as I saw Nickols' slender, magical, artist's fingers laid in the slim, powerful hand of the Reverend Mr. Goodloe, but t

umplings and hard sauce," I said

ch books and I with my hospital stretchers? I got a dandy lung clip; did you bring away an

of bits of treasures that the war might destroy, and beat it back to civilization. Did the Madonna of the Red Cross you had in tow come across as sentimenta

' She got God's welcome!" was the answer that came to the laughing question in a quiet, reve

again got the sense of danger from the tall, lithe figure that stood in the moonlight, radiant before us in the shadow. "We'

lk-clad shoulder. "Good night, both of you, and I hope to see you both again soon. Smell the

e corner. "Degrees from three old colleges, millions, women lovers in millions, all thrown away to sing psalms for a few rustics in little old Goodloets. Can you beat it? But, b

for the kiss I had been holding from him all the long winter of our engagement, claiming to want it only under the roof of the

was my muff

time. I like ripe fruit-and kisses. Did you say Goodloe had come over to steal apple dumplings and you had caught him in the act? I never was so hungry before and one of Mrs. Dab

ith delight at the practical turn the scene had taken, and I led him into the dark house, tu

and a tall bottle from the sideboard, Nickols led the way out of the long windows onto the south balcony over which the moon, now high in the heavens, poured the radia

adorable laugh, as he lifted the first spoonful, dripping with cream, to his mouth. Then with the food almost bestowed

poon was poised while his eyes fairly devoured the scene sp

," I said, as I poured his drink over the

ost wonderful and beautiful landscape effect I have ever beheld. That is just what our garden needed. I suppose I woul

den and his own improvement and to what I hoped the work was leading him. But somehow I couldn't bring myself to describe the scene which had that night been enacted in the garden-I couldn't. "Oh, I am so glad you are not furious and will maybe be wi

to me and all the fame I can conveniently wear. Encourage 'em? Just watch me! Only what the judge thinks will take two years can be done in one season if we get experts down to do it, which we will. Trees two h

th-with father, will h

fter it. Old man Jeffries has made two barrels of money in the last ten years in oil and he is going to build an estate up on the Hudson that will make the world gasp. I hadn't put in a bid, but this idea of the judge's and Greg's, with the whole village grouped about it, has given me the keynote to win the thing f

don't care where the parson comes in, just so I don't have to join the church to get the garden," I said,

out toward the gray little chapel. "Most people who join churches do it for some kind of pull, social or business, or a respectability

n Sunday morning, just in time to bathe and get into his frock coat to perform tha

ceremonials," said Nickols. "

sheep and they are all backsliding down on me. I am getting, an

e official stamp of Christianity upon you?" Nickols a

any one, of the hieroglyphics there. I know each time I open my nature to him he is going to turn aside, and yet I will

h which the great bare scheme has been enmeshed and clothed. The Methodist Church positively forbids Billy to play poker or drink, but it just as positively forbids him to see Pavlowa dance or Beerbohm Tree play Falstaff or Forbes Robertson incarnate Hamlet. And look at its wretched machinery-they allow a young man to give his life and expect inspiration from him at six hundred dollars a year with a wife and two dozen children, which he has been encouraged to bring down upon himself, dependent on that same si

What do we want to do it all over again for, that is, provided we do all the pleasant things while we have the chance? I don't want to see any play twice, even a masterpiece. I wou

e that is as unsatisfied as this," I m

d see a deviltry dancing at me out of the corner of his

he world's goods and go a pace that pleases them, they are unsatisfied. If they don't get the new deal that immortality promises t

he Reverend Gregory's garden and done a few more commissions. Try kissing me and see if you don't feel more cheerful," Nickols answered with a laugh, as he drew me close to him. I

in the fragrant darkness, lit only by the silver light of the night from a long w

you happy.

serable, dear," I whispered back as I drew myself o

pecially a woman who had loved him since her heart had been developed to the knowledge of love. Very unostentatiously and with perfect good taste Nickols had let me see that Marie VanClive with her Knickerbocker ancestry and her Manhattan land-grants fortune was very decidedly interested in him in her cultured and perfected young way, and young Mrs. Houston had herself shown me the same thing on one of the week-end flights we had had on her

nd be happy," I murmured, as I fell asleep with m