t decided on him for Ruth since
the judge has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does.
But don't you all say a word, for John's mighty timid, and I don't
believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. If
he had had he'd have tried a set-to with you, Molly, like all the rest
of the shy birds in town. He doesn't see a woman as anything but a
patient at the end of a spoon, and mighty kind and gentle he does the
dosing of them, too. Just the other day--dearie me, Judy, what has
boiled over now?" And in the excitement that ensued I escaped to the
garden.

Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Doctor John; he doesn't see a woman, and
there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realize
that he had always been like that, and I told myself that there was no
reason in the world why my heart should beat in my slippers on that
account. Still I don't see why Ruth Chester should have her head
literally thrown against that stone wall and I wish Aunt Bettie
wouldn't. It seemed like a desecration even to try to match-make him and
it made me hot with indignation all over. I dug so fiercely at the roots
of my phlox with a trowel I had picked up that they groaned so loud I
could almost hear them. I felt as if I must operate on something. And it
was in this mood that Alfred's letter found me.

It had a surprise in it and I sat back on the grass and read it with my
heart beating like a trip-hammer. He had sailed the day he had posted it
and he was due to arrive in New York almost as soon as it did, just any
hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from New York immediately to
Hillsboro" he had written in words that fairly sung themselves off the
paper. I was frightened--so frightened that the letter shook in my
hands, and with only the thought of being sure that I might be alone for
a few minutes with it, I fled to the garret.

Surely no woman ever in all the world read such a letter as that, and no
wonder my breath almost failed me. It was a love-letter in which the
cold paper was transubstantiated into a heart that beat against mine and
I bowed my head over it as I wet it with tears. I knew then that I had
taken his coming back lightly; had fussed over it and been silly-proud
of it; while not _really_ caring at all. All that awful melting
away of my fatness seemed just a lack of confidence in his love for me;
he wouldn't have minded if I weighed five hundred, I felt sure. He loved
me--r