on't you?"

"I think it is likely," I answered, with the brittle sugar in my voice
that Letitia only half knows the flavor of. "But don't try to sketch
things, Letitia. Begin at the beginning and go straight to the end; I'll
pick up the pieces."

"Well, of course you remember the Bishop Goodloe romance, don't you?"
asked Letitia, hopeful that she could get a small start ahead on her
chronicle.

"I don't remember anything about any bishop, ever. I forget things about
that kind of people. What did, or didn't he do?"

"Charlotte!" remonstrated Letitia. "He was the last of the Goodloes who
built that old Goodloe home on exactly the place where the first Goodloe
set the stakes of the first stockade put up in the Harpeth Valley, right
here in Goodloets. It burned down the night he married that Miss Gregory
in New York, before we were born. Don't you remember we used to play in
the ruins, just over here beyond the garden where the chapel stands now?
Your father bought the property. Part of your garden is old Madam
Goodloe's garden and that's why it was so wonderful for Judge Powers to
give the lot and let Mr. Goodloe build the chapel there. We all felt
that, though some of us were scared when we thought about what you might
do when you came home. Still, after we saw that wonderful little stone
chapel that Mr. Goodloe had one of the greatest architects in New York
design, after he had sent him packages of sketches of your garden and
the Poplars, so it would only make it all the more beautiful, we felt
better. You don't really mind about it, do you, dear?" Letitia's voice
was beseechingly enthusiastic, though keyed down with a note of anxiety.

"Go on!" I commanded, packing down the rage in the dark corners of my
inmost heart.

"Nobody ever knew why Bishop Goodloe never came back after he married
while on a mission from the Southern Methodist Conference to the
Northern Methodist Conference. He severed his relations with his own
Conference, and he never preached again though he was one of the most
wonderful and eloquent preachers the South has ever known. He was the
youngest bishop the church had ever ordained. Nobody ever knew what
happened, and all we know now is that this perfectly beautiful man, who
is the bishop's son, came down to the General Conference in Nashville,
was examined and ordained, and the presiding bishop sent him out here to
Goodloets last November. We don't know anything about him except that he
has be