e surging in
the atmosphere that it was with difficulty that I sat through supper
and listened to Jane and Polk, who had come in with her, plan town
sewerage. To-morrow night I knew the moon wouldn't rise until eleven
o'clock, and how did I know anyway that Sallie's emancipation might not
get started on the wrong track and run into my Crag? His chivalry would
never let him refuse a woman who proposed to him and he'll be in danger
until I can do it and tell the town about it.

Jane and Polk had promised Dickie and Nell to motor down Providence Road
as far as Cloverbend in the moonlight, and I think Caroline and Lee were
going too. Polk looked positively agonized with embarrassed sorrow at
leaving me all alone, and it was with difficulty that I got them off. I
pleaded the greatest fatigue and my impatience amounted to crossness.

After they had gone I dismissed Jasper and Petunia and locked the back
doors, put out all the lights in the house and retired to the side
steps, determined to be invisible no matter who called--and wait!

And for one mortal hour there I sat alone in that waning old moonlight,
that grew colder and paler by the minute, while the stiff breeze that
poured down from Old Harpeth began to be vicious and icy as it nipped my
ears and hands and nose and sent a chill down to my very toes.

Nobody came and there I sat!

Finally, with the tears tangling icily in my lashes, I got up and went
into the house and lighted the fat pine under the logs in the hall. They
had lain all ready for the torch for a whole year, just as I had lain
for a lifetime until a few weeks ago. Then suddenly they blazed--as I
had done.

My condition was pitiable. I felt that all nature had deserted me, the
climate, Indian summer, the harvest moon and my own charm, but my head
was up and I was going to crackle pluckily along to my blaze, so I
turned towards the door to go across the road and put my fate to the
test, even if I took pneumonia standing begging at his front door. I
hoped I would find him in the lodge and--

"Evelina," he exclaimed as he burst open my door, flung himself into the
firelight and seized my arm like a robber baron of the Twelfth Century,
making a grab for his lady-love in the midst of her hostile kindred, "I
thought I would never get here! I ran all the way up from the office.
Here's a telegram from Mr. Hall that says that the two roads have merged
and will take the bluff route past Glendale, and give us