minister who always
looked as if he had just risen from his knees. I do not know why women
are this way about preachers, but they are, at least they were in my
day, and, later, I discovered that the trait leads to curious
complications. Meanwhile, I left the course of our true love all to
William, feeling that a man who could smile like that must know what
was proper. We were engaged in less than a week and married in a
month. Women only are the conductors of protracted courtships.

Our wedding tour was a drive of twenty miles through the country to the
parsonage on the Redwine Circuit. And the only one who had any moral
impression of the day was the horse. I do not even recall the road
except that it swept away like a white, wind-blown scarf over the green
world, and that wild roses looked at me intimately from the fence
corners as we passed. William had a happy amen expression, but neither
of us was thinking of the living or dying souls in the Redwine Circuit.
The horse, however, had got her training on the road between churches,
and did not know she was conducting a wedding tour. She was a sorrel,
very thin and long-legged, with the disposition of a conscientious
red-headed woman. She was concerned only to get us to the parsonage in
time for the "surprise" that had been secretly prepared for our coming.

Toward evening the road narrowed and steepened and, looking up, we
caught sight of it, a little wren of a house, hidden between two green
shoulders of the world. The roof sloped until one could touch the
mossy shingles, and the chimneys on either side were like ugly,
voluminous old women who rocked the cradle of a home between them and
cheered it with the red heart of wood fires within. In the valley
below lived the people of Redwine Church. But the world was withdrawn
and could only be seen at a great distance through the gateway of the
two hills. One had the feeling that God's ancient peace had not been
disturbed in this place, and this was a solemn, foreboding feeling for
me as we reached the shadow of the big fruit tree in front of the
house, and William lifted me lightly from the buggy, unlatched the
door--it was before the day of rogues and locks in that community--and
welcomed me home with a kiss that felt a trifle too much like a
benediction.

There were two rooms; one was a bedroom, having a red, white and blue
rag carpet on the floor and furnished with a home-made bed, a little
stump-toed ro