"Hope you may die?"

"Hope I may die."

"Wall, it ain't anything to see but jest a house," remarked President,
as I held out my hand, "an' girls ain't worth the lookin' at."

"She called me common," I said, soberly.

"Oh, shucks!" retorted President, with fine scorn, and we said no more.

Clinging tightly to his hand I trudged the short blocks in silence. As I
was little, and he was very large for his years, it was with difficulty
that I kept pace with him; but by taking two quick steps to his single
slow one, I managed to cover the same distance in almost the same number
of minutes. He was a tall, overgrown boy, very fat for his age, with a
foolish, large-featured face which continued to look sheepishly amiable
even when he got into a temper.

"Is it far, President?" I enquired at last between panting breaths.

"There 'tis," he answered, pointing with his free hand to a fine old
mansion, with a broad and hospitable front, from which the curved iron
railing bent in a bright bow to the pavement. It was the one great house
on the hill, with its spreading wings, its stuccoed offices, its massive
white columns at the rear, which presided solemnly over the terraced
hill-side. A moment later he led me up to the high, spiked wall, and
swung me from the ground to a secure perch on his shoulder. With my
hands clinging to the iron nails that studded the wall, I looked over,
and then caught my breath sharply at the thought that I was gazing upon
an enchanted garden. Through the interlacing elm boughs the rosy light
of the afterglow fell on the magnolias and laburnums, on the rose
squares, and on the tall latticed arbours, where amid a glossy bower of
foliage, a few pale microphylla roses bloomed out of season. Overhead
the wind stirred, and one by one the small yellow leaves drifted, like
wounded butterflies, down on the box hedges and the terraced walks.

"You've got to come down now--you're too heavy," said President from
below, breathing hard as he held me up.

"Jest a minute--give me a minute longer an' I'll let you eat my
blackberry jam at supper."

"An' you've promised on yo' life to sham sick to-morrow?"

"I'll sham sick an' I'll let you eat my jam, too, if you'll hold me a
little longer."

He lifted me still higher, and clutching desperately to the iron spikes,
I hung there quivering, breathless, with a thumping heart. A glimmer of
white flitted between the box rows on a lower terrace, and I saw that
the prin