“Why, Molly,” he said, flaring his astonished blue eyes at me, “’taint me to be took care of!  I ain’t a-going to leave you here, for maybe a bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and Doc gone.  ’Sides Doc ain’t no good and maybe wouldn’t help me hold the rope right to keep the whale from gitting away.  He don’t know how to do like I tell him like you do.”

“Try him, lover, and maybe he will—­will learn to—­” I couldn’t help the tears that came to stop my words.

“Now you see, Molly, how you’d cry with that kiss-spot gone,” he said with an amused, manly, little tenderness in his voice that I had never heard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the only voluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculous little trousers under his blouses.  “You can have most a hundred kisses every night if you don’t say no more about not a-going and fix that whale hook for me quick,” he coaxed against my cheek.

Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn’t know what you were saying with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy, little paddie burned the sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was powerless to defend myself.  You are mine, you are, you are! You are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit and—­and you ought to have been flesh of my flesh!

I don’t know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson’s call from my front gate, but I sometimes think that women have a torture-proof clause in their constitutions.

She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie’s house and the Pollard cook was following them with a large basket, in which were packed the things Aunt Bettie was contributing to the entertainment of the distinguished citizen.  Mr. Johnson is Alfred’s nearest kinsman in Hillsboro, and, of course, he is to be their guest while he is in town.

“He’ll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he’ll not even know he’s eating my Washington almond pudding with Thomas’ old port in it,” teased Aunt Bettie with a laugh as I went across the street with them.

“There’s going to be a regular epidemic of love in Hillsboro, I do believe,” she continued in her usual strain of sentimental speculation.  “I saw Mr. Graves talking to Delia Hawes in front of the store an hour ago, as I came out from looking at the blue chintz to match Pet for the west wing, and they were both so absorbed they didn’t even see me.  That was what might have been called a conflagration dinner you gave the other night, Molly, in more ways than one.  I wish a spark had set off Benton Wade and Henrietta, too.  Maybe it did, but is just taking fire slowly.”

I think it would be a good thing just to let Aunt Bettie blindfold every unmarried person in this town and marry them to the first person they touch hands with.  It would be fun for her and then we could have peace and 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 found myself.