ide with ruffles, in the case of such presentations, but my heart
rose very high up and beat so near to the roots of my tongue that it
was impossible for me to speak as I was presented, in the traveling
tweeds of a young man of American fashion, to the very wonderful and
beautiful and fearful Gouverneur Williamson Faulkner of the State of
Harpeth.

"Here's my boy, Governor," was all the introduction my Uncle, the
General Robert, administered to me, and I stood and looked into the
face of him whom afterwards I discovered to be the greatest gentleman
in the world, with my heart beating in my throat and yet astir under
my woman's breast in the place it had always before resided.

CHAPTER VI

"WE BOTH NEED YOU"

I do not know how it is that I shall find words in which to write down
the loveliness of that Gouverneur of Old Harpeth. He was not as tall
as my Uncle, the General Robert, and he was slender and lithe as some
wild thing in a forest, but the power in the broadness of his
shoulders and in the strength of his nervous hands was of a greatness
of which to be frightened; that is, I think, of which a man should be
frightened but in which a woman would take much glory. His hair was of
the tarnished gold of a sunset storm and upon his temples was a curved
crest of white that sparkled like the spray of a wave. All of which I
must have seen with some kind of inward eyes, for from the moment my
eyes lifted themselves from contemplating the carpet in embarrassment
over my tweed trousers they were looking into his in a way which at
dawn my eyes have gazed into the morning star rising near to me over
the little wood at the Chateau de Grez. I did not for many days know
whether those eyes were gray or blue or purple, for when I regarded
them I forgot to decide, and also they were so deep and shadowed by
the blackness of their lashes and brows that such a decision was
difficult. At this time I only knew that in them lay the fire of the
lightning over Old Harpeth when the storm breaks, the laugh of the
very small boy who splashes bare feet in the water with glee, and also
a coldness of the stars upon the frost of winter. I was glad that I
came across the dark ocean to flee from the cruel guns into a strange
land to look into those eyes.

"It is good that you have come, Robert Carruthers, for the General and
I both need you," were the words I heard him saying to me in a voice
that was as deep and of as much interest as t