come to the do' an' asked ole Hominy to bring down Roxy
for a minute. Roxy she come, an' was gwyn to run away till she saw my
flowers, an' she stopped a minute an' says I: 'I jest got 'em for you,
Roxy, becaze I see you when you was a little chile.' She tuk 'em an'
says: 'It was very kind of you, sir,' an' kercheyed an' melted away.
Next day I was thar agin, Levin, an' I says, to make it seem like a
trade: 'Roxy, kin ye give me a cup of coffee?' 'Law, yes!' she says,
forgittin' her blushin' right away. So I kept shady on love an' put it
on the groun's of coffee, an', Levin, I everlastin'ly fotched the wild
flowers till that gal got to be a-lookin' fur me at the do' every day,
an' I'd hide an' see her come to the window an' peep fur me. One day she
says, as I was drinkin' of the coffee: 'Mr. Wonnell, what do you put
yourself at sech pains fur to 'blige a pore slave girl that ain't but
half white?' I thought a minute, so as to say something that wouldn't
skeer her off, an' I says: 'Roxy, it's becaze I'm sech a pore, worthless
feller that the white gals won't look at me!' The tears come right to
her eyes, an' she says: 'Mr. Wonnell, if I was white I would look at
you.' 'I believe you would,' says I, 'becaze you've got a white heart,
Roxy.'"

"Jack, you're a dog-gone smart lover," said Levin. "I didn't think you
had no kind of sense."

"Love-makin' is the best sense of all," said Jack, "it's that sense that
keeps the woods a-full of music, where the birds an' bees is twitterin'
and hummin' an' a-matin'. Love is the last sense to come, after you can
see, an' hear, an' feel, an' they're give to people to find out
something purty to love. Love was the whole day's work in the garding of
Eden befo' man got too industrious, an' it's all the work I do, an' I
hope I do it well."

"Now what did Roxy tell you about Meshach Milburn and Judge Custis?"

"You see, Levin, as I kept up the flower-givin', I could see a little
love start up in purty Roxy, but she didn't understand it, an' I was as
keerful not to skeer it as if it had been a snow-bird hoppin' to a crumb
of bread. She would talk to me about her little troubles, an' I listened
keerful as her mammy, becaze little things is what wimmin lives on, an'
a lady's man is only a feller patient with their little talk. The more I
listened the more she liked to tell me, an' I saw that Roxy was
a-thinkin' a great deal of me, Levin, without she or me lettin' of it
on.

"This mornin' s