much like biting anybody to-day."

"You did bite me once, though," she said airily.

"And you've never forgiven me for it," he asserted, in deepest
self-pity.

"Oh, yes, I have; the Dabneys always forgive--but they never forget. And
me, I am a Dabney."

"That's just as bad. You wouldn't be so awful mean to me if you knew.
I--I'm going away."

She came a little nearer at that and sat down beside him on the yellow
grass with an arm around the dog's neck.

"Does it hurt?" she asked. "Because, if it does, I'm sorry; and I'll
promise to forget."

"It does hurt some," he confessed. "Because, you see, I'm going to be a
preacher."

"You?" she said, with the frank and unsympathetic surprise of childhood.
Then politeness came to the rescue and she added: "I'm sorry for that,
too, if you are wanting me to be. Only I should think it would be fine
to wear a long black robe and a pretty white surplice, and to learn to
sing the prayers beautifully, and all that."

Thomas Jefferson was honestly horrified, and he looked it.

"I'd like to know what in the world you're talking about," he said.

"About your being a minister, of course. Only in France, they call them
priests of the church."

The boy's lips went together in a fine straight line. Not for nothing
did the blood of many generations of Protestants flow in his veins.
"Priest" was a Popish word.

"The Pope of Rome is antichrist!" he declared authoritatively.

She seemed only politely interested.

"Is he? I didn't know." Then, with a tactfulness worthy of graver years,
she drew away from the dangerous topic. "When are you going?"

"To-morrow."

"Is it far?"

"Yes; it's an awful long ways."

"Never mind; you'll be coming back after a while, and then we'll be
friends--if you want to."

Surely Thomas Jefferson's heart was as wax before the fire that day.

"I'm mighty glad," he said. Then he got up. "Will you let me show you
the way home again?--the short, easy way, this time?"

She hesitated a moment, and then stood up and gave him her hand.

"I'm not afraid of you now; _we_ don't hate him any more, do we,
Hector?"

And so they went together through the yellowing aisles of the September
wood and across the fields to the manor-house gates.

X

THE SHADOW OF THE ROCK

Tom Gordon--Thomas Jefferson now only in his mother's letters--was
fifteen past, and his voice was in the transition stage which made him
blushingly self-conscious when he ran u