The Melting of Molly Read online

  Leaf VII.

  Heart Agonies.

  I have suffered this day until I want to lay my face down against thehem of His garment and wait in the dust for Him to pick me up. I shallnever be able to do it myself, and how He's going to do it I can't see,but He will.

  That dinner-party last night was bad enough, but to-day's been worse.I didn't sleep until long after daylight and then Jane came in beforeeight o'clock with a letter for me that looked like a state document.I felt in my trembly bones that it was some sort of summons affair fromJudge Wade; and it was. I looked into the first paragraph and thendecided that I had better get up and dress and have a cup of coffee anda single egg before I tried to read it.

  Incidental to my bath and dressing, I weighed and found that I had lostall four of those last surplus pounds and two more in three days. Thosetwo extra pounds might be construed to prove that I was in love, butexactly with whom I was utterly unprepared to say. I didn't even enjoythe thinness, but took a kind of already married look in my glass andtried to slip the egg past my bored lips and get myself to chew it down.It was work; and then I took up the judge's letter, which also was workand more of it.

  He started at the beginning of everything, that is at the beginning ofthe tuberculosis girl, and I cried over the pages of her as if she hadbeen my own sister. At the tenth page we buried her and took up Alfred,and I must say I saw a new Alfred in the judge's bouquet-strewnappreciation of him, but I didn't want him as bad as I had the daybefore, when I read his own new and old letters, and cried over his oldphotographs. I suppose that was the result of some of what the judgemanages the juries with. He'd be apt to use it on a woman, and shewouldn't find out about it until it was too late to be anything but mad.Still when he began on me at page sixteen I felt a little better, thoughI didn't know myself any better than I did Alfred when I got to pagetwenty.

  What I am, is just a poor foolish woman, who has a lot more heart thanshe can manage with the amount of brains she got with it at birth.I'm not any star in a rose-coloured sky, and I don't want to inspireanybody; it's too heavy an undertaking. I want to be a healthy, happywoman and a wife to a man who can inspire himself and manage me. I wantto marry a thin man, and when I get to be thirty I want my husband towant me to be as large as Aunt Bettie, but not let me. An inspirationcouldn't be fat, and I'm always in danger from hot cakes and chickengravy.

  However, if I should undertake to be all the things Judge Wade said inthat letter he wanted me to be to him, I should soon be skin and bonesfrom mental and physical exercise. Still, he does live in Hillsboro, andI won't let myself know how my heart aches at the thought of leaving myhome--and other things. It's up in my throat, and I seem always to beswallowing it, the last few days.

  All the men who write me letters seem to get themselves wound up intoa sky rocket and then let themselves explode in the last paragraph, andit always upsets my nerves. I was just about to begin to cry again overthe last words of the judge, when the only bright spot in the day so farsuddenly happened. Pet Buford ran in with the pinkest cheeks and thebrightest eyes I had seen since I looked in the mirror the night of thedance. She was in an awful hurry.

  "Molly dear," she said with her words literally falling over themselves,"Tom says you would give us some of your dinner left-overs to take forlunch in the car, for we are going to take a run down to Hedgeland tosee some awfully fine cattle he has heard will be in the market there.I don't want to ask mother, in case she won't let me go; and his mother,if he asked her, will begin to talk about us. Tom said I was to come toyou, and you would understand and arrange it all quickly. He sent hislove and all sorts of other messages. Isn't he fond of a joke?" And wekissed and laughed and packed a basket, and kissed and laughed again forgood-bye. I felt amused and happy for a few minutes--and also deserted.It's a very good thing for a woman's conceit to find out how many of herlovers are just make-believes. I may have needed Tom's deflection.

  Anyway, I don't know when I ever was so glad to see anybody as I waswhen Mrs. Johnson came in the front door. A woman who has proved to herown satisfaction that marriage is a failure is at times a great tonic toother women. I needed a tonic badly this morning and I got it.

  "Well, from all my long experience, Molly," she said as she seatedherself and began to hem a tea-cloth with long steady stabs, "husbandsare just like sticks of candy in different jars. They may look a littledifferent, but they all taste alike, and you soon get tired of them.In two months you won't know the difference in being married to AlfredBennett and Mr. Carter, and you'll have to go on living with him maybefifty years. Luck doesn't strike twice in the same place, and you can'tcount on losing two husbands. Alfred's father was Mr. Johnson's firstcousin and had more crotchets and worse. He had silent spells thatlasted a week, and altogether gave his family a bad time of it. Alfredlooks very much like him."

  "Mrs. Johnson," I said after a minute's silence, while I had decidedwhether or not I had better tell her all about it. If a woman's in lovewith her husband you can't trust her to keep a secret, but I decided totry Mrs. Johnson. "I really am not engaged exactly to Alfred Bennett,though I suppose he thinks so by now if he has got the answer to thattelegram. But--but something has made me--made me think about JudgeWade--that is he--what do you think of him, Mrs. Johnson?" I concludedin the most pitifully perplexed tone of voice.

  "All alike, Molly; all as much alike as peas in a pod; all except JohnMoore, who's the only exception in all the male tribe I ever met! Hismarrying once was just accidental and must be forgiven him. She fell inlove with him while he was attending her when she had typhoid, when hisback was turned as it were, and it was simple kindness in him that madehim marry her when he found out how it was with the poor thing. There'snot a woman in this town who could marry that wouldn't marry him at thedrop of his hat--but, thank goodness, that hat will never drop, and I'llhave one sensible man to comfort and doctor me down into my old age.Now, just look at that! Mr. Johnson's come home here in the middle ofthe morning, and I'll have to get that old paper I hunted out of hisdesk for him last night. I wonder how he came to forget it!"

  It's funny how Mrs. Johnson always knows what Mr. Johnson wants beforehe knows himself and gets it before he asks for it!

  As she went out of the gate the postman came in, and at the sight ofanother letter my heart slunk off into my slippers, and my brain seemedabout to back up in a corner and refuse to work. In a flash it came tome that men oughtn't to write letters to women very much--they reallydon't plough deep enough, they just irritate the top soil. I took thismissive from Alfred, counted all the fifteen pages, put it out of sightunder a book, looked out of the window and saw Mr. Johnson shooed offdown the street by Mrs. Johnson; saw the doctor's car go chugginghurriedly in the garage, and then my spirit turned itself to the walland refused to be comforted. I tried my best, but failed to respond tomy own remonstrances with myself, and tears were slowly gathering in acloud of gloom when a blue gingham, romper-clad sunbeam burst into theroom.

  "Git your night-gown and your tooth-bresh quick, Molly, if you want topack 'em in my trunk!" he exclaimed with his eyes dancing and a curlstanding straight up on the top of his head, as it has a habit of doingwhen he is most excited. "You can't take nothing but them 'cause I'mgoing to put in a rope to tie the whale with when I ketch him, and it'lltake up all the rest of the room. Git 'em quick!"

  "Yes, lover, I'll get them for you, but tell Molly where it is you aregoing to sail off with her in that trunk of yours?" I asked, droppinginto the game as I have always done with him, no matter what game of myown pressed when he called.

  "On the ocean where the boats go 'cross and run right over a whale.Don't you remember you showed me them pictures of spout whales in abook, Molly? Father says they comes right up by the ship and you canhear 'em shoot water and maybe a iceberg, too. Which do you want toketch' most, Molly, a iceberg or a whale?" His eager eyes demandedinstant decision on my part of the nature of capture I preferred. Mymind quickly reverted to those two ponderous and intense epist
les I hadgot within the hour, and I lay back in my chair and laughed until I feltalmost merry.

  "The iceberg, Billy, every time," I said at last. I just can't managewhales, especially if they are ardent, which word means intense. I like_icebergs_, or I think I should if I could catch one."

  "I don't believe you could, Molly, but maybe father will let you put arope and a long hook in his trunk to try with, if your clothes go intomine. His is a heap the biggest anyway, and Nurse Tilly said he ought toput my things in his, but I cried, and then he went upstairs and got outthat little one for me. Come and see 'em."

  "What do you mean, Billy?" I asked, while a sudden fear shot all over melike lightning. "You're just playing go-away, aren't you?"

  "No, I'm not playing, Molly!" he exclaimed excitedly. "Me and you andfather is going across the ocean for a long, long time away from here.Father ast me about it this morning, and I told him all right, and youcould come with us if you was good. He said couldn't I go without you ifyou was busy and couldn't come, and I told him you would put things downand come if I said so. Won't you, Molly? It won't be no fun without you,and you'd cry all by yourself with me gone." His little face was alldrawn up with anxiety and sympathy at my lonely estate with him out ofit, and a cry rose up from my heart with a kind of primitive savagery atwhat I felt was coming down upon me.

  Without waiting to take him with me, or think, or do anything but feeldeadly savage anger, I hurried across the garden and into Dr. Moore'ssurgery, where he was just taking off his gloves and dust-coat.

  "What do you mean, John Moore, by daring, daring to think you can go andtake Billy away from me?" I demanded, looking at him with what must havebeen such fear and madness in my face that he was startled as he cameclose to the table against which I leaned. His face had grown white andquiet at my attack, and he waited to answer for a long horrible minutethat pulled me apart like one of those inquisition machines they used totorture women with when they didn't know any better modern way to do it.

  "I didn't know Bill would tell you so soon, Mrs. Molly," he said at lastgently, looking past me out of the window into the garden. "I was comingover just as soon as I got back from this call to talk with you aboutit, even if it did seem to intrude Bill's and my affairs into a daythat--that ought to be all yours to be--be happy in. But Bill, you see,is no respecter of--of other people's happy days if he wants them in his."

  "Billy's happy days are mine and mine are his, and he has the heartnot to leave me out even if you would have him!" I exclaimed, a sobgathering in my heart at the thought that my little lover hadn't eventaken in a situation that would separate him from me across an ocean.

  "Bill is too young to understand when he is--is being bereaved, Molly,"he said, and still he didn't look at me. "I have been appointed adelegate to attend the Centennial Congress in Paris the middle of nextmonth--and somehow I--feel a bit run down lately and I thought I wouldtake the little chap and--have--have a _Wanderjahr_. You won't need himnow, Mrs. Molly, and I couldn't go without him, could I?" The sadness inhis voice would have killed me if I hadn't let it madden me instead.

  "Won't need Billy any more!" I exclaimed with a rage that made my voiceliterally scorch past my lips. "Was there ever a minute in his life thatI haven't needed Billy? How dare you say such a thing to me? You arecruel, cruel, and I have always known it, cold and cruel like all othermen who don't care how they wring the life-blood out of women's hearts,and are willing to use their children to do it with. Even the lawdoesn't help us poor helpless creatures, and you can take our childrenand go with them to the ends of the earth and leave us suffering. I havegone on and believed that you were not like what the women say all menare, and that you cared whether you hurt people or not, but now I seethat you are just the same, and you'll take my baby away if you wantto--and I can do nothing to prevent it--nothing in the wide world--I amcompletely and absolutely helpless--you coward, you!"

  When that awful word, the worst word that a woman can use to a man, leftmy lips, a flame shot up into his eyes that I thought would burn me up,but in a half second it was extinguished by the strangest thing in theworld--for the situation--a perfect flood of mirth. He sat down in hischair and shook all over, with his head in his hands, until I saw tearscreep through his fingers. I had calmed down now so suddenly that I wasabout to begin to cry in good earnest when he wiped his eyes and saidwith a low laugh in his throat--

  "The case is yours, Molly, settled out of court, and the'possession-nine-points-of-the-law clause' works in some cases for awoman against a man. Generally speaking, anyway, the pup belongs to theman who can whistle him down, and you can whistle Bill from me any day.I'm just his father, and what I think or want doesn't matter. You hadbetter take him and keep him!"

  "I intend to," I answered haughtily, uncertain as to whether I hadbetter give in and be agreeable, or stay prepared to cry in case therewas further argument. But suddenly a strange diffidence came into hiseyes, and he looked away from me as he said in queer hesitating words--

  "You see, Mrs. Molly, I thought, from now on, your life wouldn't haveexactly a place for Bill. Have you considered that you have trained himto demand you all the time and all of you? How would you manageBill--and--and other claims?"

  And if there is a contagious thing in this world it is embarrassment. Inever felt anything worse in all my life than the shame that swept overme in a great hot wave when that look came into his eyes and made merealise just exactly what I had been saying to him, about what, and howI had said it. I stood perfectly still, shook all over like a leaf, andwondered if I would ever be able to raise my eyes from the ground. Adizzy nauseated feeling for myself rose up in me against myself, and Iwas just about to turn on my heels and leave him, I hoped for ever, whenhe came over and laid his hand on my shoulder.

  "Molly," he said in a voice that might have come down from heaven ondove wings, "you can't for a moment feel or think that I don't realiseand appreciate what you have been to the motherless little chap, and forlife I am yours at command, as he is. I really thought it would be arelief to you to have him taken away from you for a little while justnow, and I still think it is best; but not unless you consent. You shallhave him back whenever you are ready for him, and at all times both heand I are at your service to the whole of our kingdoms. Just think thematter over, won't you, and decide what you want me to do?"

  Something in me died for ever, I think, when he spoke to me like that.He's not like other men, and there aren't any other men on earth buthim! All the rest are just nowhere. And I'm not anything myself. There'sno excuse for my living, and I wish I wasn't so healthy and likely to goon doing it. It was all over, and there was nothing left for me to livefor, and before I could stop myself I buried my face in my hands.

  "Billy asked me to go with him on this awful whale-hunt!" I sobbedout to comfort myself with the thought that somebody did care for me,regardless of just how I was further embarrassing and complicatingmyself in the affairs of the two men I had thought I owned and was nowfinding out that I had to give up. I wish I had been looking at him,for I felt him start, but he said in his big friendly voice that is somuch--and never enough for me--

  "Well, why not you and Alfred come along and make it a family party, ifthat is what suits Bill, the boss?"

  If men would just make an end of women's hearts in a businesslike way,it would be so much kinder of them. Why do they prefer to use dullweapons that mash the life out slowly? Everything is at an end for meto-night, and that blow did it. It was a horrible cruel thing for himto say to me! I know now that I have been in love with John Moore forlonger than I can tell, and that I'll never love anybody else, and thatalso I have offered myself to him and have had to be refused at leasttwice a day for a year. A widow can't say she didn't understand what shewas doing, even to herself, but-- My humiliation is complete, and theonly thing that can make me ever hold up my head is to puzzle him by--by_happily_ marrying Alfred Bennett--and quick.

  Of course, he must suspect how I feel about him, for two peo
ple couldn'tboth be so ignorant as not to see such an enormous thing as my love forhim is, and I was the blind one. But he must never, never know that Iever realised it, for he is so good that it would distress him. I mustjust go on in my foolish way with him until I can get away. I'll tellhim I'm sorry I was so indignant to-night, and say that I think it willbe fine for him to take my Billy away from me with him. I must smile atthe idea of having my very soul amputated, insist that it is the onlything to do, and pack up the little soul in a cabin trunk with a smile.Just smile, that is all! Life demands smiles from a woman even if shemust crush their perfume from her own heart; and she generally has themready.

  Oh, Molly, Molly, is it for this you came into the world, twice to giveyourself without love? What difference does it make that your arms arestrong and white if they can't clasp him? Why are your eyes blue poolsof love if they are not for his questioning?

  Yes, I know God is very tender with a woman, and I think He understands;so, if she crept very close to Him and caught at His sleeve to steadyherself, He would be kind to her until she had the courage to go onalong her own steep way. Please, God, never let him find out, for itwould hurt him to have hurt me!

  Leaf VIII.

  Melted.

  Some days are like the miracle flowers that open in the garden fromplants you didn't expect to bloom at all. I might have been born, livedand died without having this one come into my life, and now that I havehad it I don't know how to write it, except in the crimson of blood, theblue of flame, the gold of glory--and a tinge of light green would wellexpress the part I have played. But it is all over at last and--

  Ruth Clinton was the unfolding of the first hour-petal, and I got aglimpse of a heart of gold that I feel dumb with worship to think of.She's God's own good woman, and He made her what she is. I wish I couldhave borne her, or she me, and the tenderness of her arms was asacrament. We two women just stood aside with life's artifices andconcealments and let our own hearts do the talking.

  She said she had come because she felt that if she talked with me Imight be better able to understand Alfred when he came, and that she hadseen that the judge was very determined, and she thoroughly recognisedhis force of character. We stopped there while I gave her the documentto read. I suppose it was dishonourable, but I needed her protectionfrom it. I'm glad she had the strength of mind to walk with a head highin the air to the fire and burn it up. Anything might have happened ifshe hadn't. And even now I feel that only my marriage vows will close upthe case for the judge--even yet he may-- But when Ruth had got donewith Alfred, she had wiped Judge Wade's appreciation of him completelyoff my mind and destroyed it in tender words that burned us both worsethan Jane's fire burned the letter. She did me an awfully good service.

  "And so you see, you lovely woman, you, do you not, that you were forhim, as a tribute to his greatness, and it is given to you to fulfil adestiny?" She was so beautiful as she said it that I had to turn my eyesaway, but I felt as I did when those solemn "_let-not-man-put-asunder_"words were spoken over me by Mr. Raines, our minister. It made mefrightened, and before I knew it I had poured out the whole truth to herin a perfect cataract of words. The truth always acts on women as somehitherto untried drug, and you can never tell what the reaction is goingto be. In this case I was stricken dumb and found it hard to see.

  "Oh, dear heart," she exclaimed as she reached out and drew me into herlovely gracious arms, "then the privilege is all the more wonderful foryou, as you make some sacrifice to complete his life. Having sufferedthis, you will be all the greater woman to understand him. I accept myown sorrow at his hands willingly, as it gives me the larger sympathyfor his work, though he will no longer need my personal encouragement ashe has for years. In the light of his love, this lesser feeling for Dr.Moore will soon pass away and the accord between you will be complete."This was more than I could stand, and, feeling less than a worm, Iturned my face into her breast and wailed. Now who would have thoughtthat girl could dance as she did?

  By this time I was in such a solution of grief that I would soon havehad to be sopped up with a sponge if Pet hadn't run in all bubblingover. Happiness has a habit of not even acknowledging the presence ofgrief, and Pet didn't seem to see our red noses, crushed draperies andgenerally damp atmosphere.

  "Molly," she said with a deliciously young giggle, "Tom says you are tosend him two guineas to spend getting the brass band to polish up beforethe six o'clock train, by which your Mr. Bennett comes. He has spent aguinea already to induce them to clean up their uniforms, and it costhim five pounds to bail the cornettist out of gaol for roost robbing. Hesays I am to tell you that, as this is your festivity, you ought atleast to pay the piper. Hurry up, he's waiting for me, and here's thekiss he told me to put on your left ear!"

  "I suppose you delivered that kiss straight from where he gave it toyou, Pettie dear," I had the spirit to say as I went over to the deskfor my purse.

  "Why, Molly, you know me better than that!" she exclaimed from behind aperfect rose cloud of blushes.

  "I know Tom better than I do you," I answered as she fled with the moneyin her hand. I looked at Ruth Clinton and we both laughed. It is truethat a broader sympathy is one of the by-products of sorrow, and a weekago I might have resented Pet to a marked degree instead of giving herthe money and a blessing.

  "I'm going quick, Molly, with that laugh between us," Ruth said as sherose and took me into her arms again for just half a second, and beforeI could stop her she was gone.

  She met Billy toiling up the front step with a long piece of rusty irongas-pipe, which took off an inch of paint as it bumped against thedoorway. She bent down and kissed the back of his neck, which theft wasalmost more than I could stand and apparently more than Billy wasprepared to accept.

  "Go away, girl," he said in his rudest manner; "don't you see I'm busy?"

  I met him in the front hall just in time to prevent a hopeless scar onmy parquet floor. He was hot, perspiring and panting, but full oftriumph.

  "I found it, Molly, I found it!" he exclaimed as he let the heavy pipedrop almost on the bare pink toes. "You can git a hammer and pound theend sharp and bend it so no whale we ketch can git away for nothing. Youand father kin put it in your trunk 'cause it's too long for mine, and Ican carry father's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick, andI'll help you do it!" The pain in my breast was almost more than I couldbear.

  "Lover," I said as I knelt down by him in the dim old hall and put myarms around him as if to shield him from some blow I couldn't help beingaimed at him, "you wouldn't mind much, would you, if just this time yourMolly couldn't go with you? Your father is going to take good care ofyou and--and maybe bring you back to me some day."

  "Why, Molly," he said, flaring his astonished blue eyes at me, "'tisn'tme to be took care of! I'm not going to leave you here for maybe a abear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and father gone.'Sides, father isn't very useful and maybe wouldn't help me hold therope right to keep the whale from gitting away. He don't know how to dolike I tell him like you do."

  "Try him, lover, and maybe he will--will learn to--" I couldn't helpthe tears that came to stop my words.

  "Now you see, Molly, how you'd cry with that kiss-spot gone," he saidwith an amused, manly little tenderness in his voice that I had neverheard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the onlyvoluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculouslittle trousers under his blouses. "You can have most a hundred kissesevery night if you don't say no more about not going, and make thatwhale-hook for me quick," he coaxed against my cheek.

  Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn't know what you were sayingwith your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy little hand burned thesleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I waspowerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you _are!_ Youare soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit.

  I don't know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson's call from my frontgate, but I sometime
s think that women have a torture-proof clause intheir constitutions.

  She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie'shouse, and the Pollard cook was following them with a large basket, inwhich were packed things Aunt Bettie was contributing towards theentertainment of the distinguished citizen. Mr. Johnson is Alfred'snearest kinsman in Hillsboro, and, of course, he is to be their guestwhile he is in town.

  "He'll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he'll not even know he's eatingmy Kensington almond pudding with Thomas's old port in it," teased AuntBettie with a laugh as I went across the street with them.

  "There's going to be a regular epidemic of love affairs in Hillsboro, Ido believe," she continued in her usual strain of sentimentalspeculation. "I saw Mr. Graves talking to Delia Hawes in front of thedraper's an hour ago, as I came out from looking at the blue chintz tomatch Pet for the west wing, and they were both so absorbed they didn'teven see me. That was what might have been called a conflagration dinneryou gave the other night, Molly, in more ways than one. I wish a sparkhad set off Benton Wade and Henrietta, too. Maybe it did, but is justtaking fire slowly."

  I think it would be a good thing just to let Aunt Bettie blindfold everyunmarried person in this town and marry them to the first person theytouch hands with. It would be fun for her, and then we could have peaceand apparently as much happiness as we are going to have anyway. Mrs.Johnson seemed to be in somewhat the same state of mind as I foundmyself.

  "Humph," she said as we went up the front steps, "I'll be glad when youare married and settled, Molly Carter, so the rest of this town canquiet down into peace once more, and I sincerely hope every woman underfifty in Hillsboro who is already married will stay in that state untilshe reaches that age. But come on in, both of you, and help me get thismarriage feast ready, if I must! The day is going by on greased wheels,and I can't let Mr. Johnson's crotchets be neglected, Alfred or noAlfred."

  And from then on for hours and hours I was strapped to a torture wheelthat turned and turned, minute after minute, as it ground spice andsugar and bridal meats and me relentlessly into a great suffering pulp.Could I ever in all my life have hungered for food and been able to getit past the lump in my throat that grew larger with the seconds? And ifAlfred's pudding tasted of the salt of Dead Sea fruit this evening, itwas from my surreptitious tears that dripped into it.

  It was late, very late, before Mrs. Johnson realised it and shooed mehome to get ready to go to the train along with the brass band and allthe other welcomes.

  I hurried all I could, but for long minutes I stood in front of mymirror and questioned myself. Could this slow, pale, dead-eyed, slim,drooping girl be the rollicking girl of a Molly who had looked out ofthat mirror at me one short week ago? Where were the wings on her heels,the glint in her curls, the laugh on her mouth, and the light in hereyes?

  Slowly at last I lifted the blue muslin, twenty-three-inch waist shroudand let it slip over my head and fall slimly around me. I was fasteningthe buttons behind and was fumbling the next one into the buttonholewhen I suddenly heard laughing excited voices coming up the side streetthat ran just under my west window. Something told me that Alfred hadcome by the five-down train instead of the six-up, and I fairly reeledto the window and peeped through the venetian blind.

  They were all in a laughing group around him, with Tom as master ofceremonies, and Ruth Clinton was looking up into his face with anexpression I am glad I can never forget. It killed all my regrets on thescore of his future.

  It took two good looks to take him all in, and then I must have missedsome of him, for, all in all, he was so large that he stretched youreyes to behold him. He's grown seven feet tall, I don't know how manypounds he weighs, and I don't want anybody ever to tell me!

  I had never thought enough about evolution to know whether I believed init and woman's suffrage. But I know now that millions of years ago agreat, big, distinguished hippopotamus stepped out of the woods andfrightened one of my foremothers so that she turned and fled through athicket that almost tore her limb from limb, right into the arms of herown mate. That's what I did! I caught that blue satin belt and hooked ittogether with one hand and ran through my garden right over a bed ofsavage tiger-lilies and flung myself into John Moore's surgery, slammedthe door and backed up against it.

  "He's come!" I gasped. "And I'm frightened to death, with nobody but youto run to. Hide me quick! He's large and coarse-looking, and I_hate_ him!". I was that deadly cold you can get when fear runsinto your very marrow and congeals the blood in your arteries. "Quick,quick!", I panted.

  He must have been as pale as I was, and for an eternity of a second helooked at me, then suddenly heaven shone from his eyes and he opened hisarms to me with just one word.

  "Here?"

  I went.

  He held me gently for half a second, and then, with a sob which I feltrather than heard, he crushed me to him and stopped my breath with hislips on mine. I understood things then that I never had before, and Ifelt I was safe at last. I raised my hand and pressed it against John'swet lashes until he could let me speak, and I was melted into his verybreast itself.

  "Molly," he said, when enough tenderness had come back into his arms tolet me breathe, "you have almost killed me!"

  "You!" I exclaimed, crowding still closer, or at least trying to. "It'snot _you_; it's I that am killed, and you did it! I know you don'treally want me, but I can't help that. I'd rather you do the sufferingwith me than to do it myself away from you. I'm so hungry and thirstyfor you that--that I can't diet any longer!". I put the case thestrongest way I knew how.

  "Want you, Molly?" he almost sobbed, and I felt his heart pounding hardnext to my shoulder.

  "Yes, want me!" I answered with more spirit than breath left in me. "Irefuse to believe you are as stupid as I am, and anybody with even anordinary amount of brains must have seen how hard I was fighting foryou. I feel sure I left no stone unturned. Some of them I can alreadythink back and see myself tugging at, and it makes me hot all over. I'mfoolish and always was, so I'm to be excused for acting that awful way,but you are to blame for _letting_ me do it. I'm going to be yourpunishment for life for not having been stern and stopped me. You hadbetter stop me, for if I go on loving you as I have been for the lastfew minutes it will make you uncomfortable."

  "Blossom," he said, after he had hushed me with another broken doseof love, as large as he thought I could stand--I could have stoodmore!--"I am never going to tell you how long I have loved you, but thatday you came to me all in a flutter with Bennett's letter in your handit is going to take you a lifetime to settle for. You were mine--andBill's! How _could_ you--but women don't understand!" I felt himshudder in my arms as I held him close.

  "Don't women know, John?" I managed to ask softly in memory of a likequestion he had put to me across that bread and jam with the rosea-listening from the dark.

  What brought me to consciousness was his fumbling with the lace on thatblue muslin relict of a sentiment. The lace had got caught on his sleevebuttons.

  "Please don't forget that that is his possession," I laughed under hischin. "I'm still scared to death of him, and you haven't hid me yet!"

  "Molly," he asked, this time with a heaven-laugh, "where could you bemore effectually hid from Alfred Bennett than in my arms?"

  I spent ten minutes telling Billy what a hippopotamus really looks likeas I put him to bed, but later, much as I should have liked to, Icouldn't consume that horrible dinner, that I had helped prepare at theJohnsons', in the shelter of John's arms, and I had to face Alfred. RuthClinton was there, and she faced him too.

  A man that can't be happy with a woman who is willing to "fulfil hisdestiny" doesn't deserve to be.

  Then we came over here, and John had the most beautiful time persuadingAunt Adeline how a good man like Mr. Carter would want his young widowto be taken care of by being married to a safe friend of his instead ofbeing flighty and having folks wondering whom she would marry.

  "You know yourself how hard a
time a beautiful young widow has, Mrs.Henderson," he said in the tone of voice that always makes his patientsglad to take his worst doses. He got his blessing and me--with awarning.

  A lovely night wind is blowing across my garden and bringing mecongratulations from all my flower family. Flowers are a part of loveand the wooing of it, and they understand. I am waiting for the light togo out behind the tall trees over which the moon is stealthily sinking.He promised me to put it out at once, and I'm watching the glow thatmarks the place where my own two men creatures are going to rest, withmy heart in full song.

  He needs rest, he is so very tired and worn. He confessed it as I stoodon the step above him to-night, after he had taken his own good nightfrom me out under the oak-tree. When he explained to me how his agonyover me for all these months had kept him walking the floor night afternight, not knowing that I was waiting for the light to go out, I gavemyself a sweetness that I am going to say a prayer for the last thingbefore I sleep. I took his head in my arms and put my lips to thatdrake-tail kiss-spot that has tempted me for I won't say how long. ThenI fled--and so did he!

  I had about decided to burn this book, because I shan't need it anylonger, for he says he and Billy and I are going to play so much golfand tennis that I shall keep as thin as he wants me to without any moremelting, or freezing, or starving, but perhaps he would like to read thelittle red book.