e it's too long for mine, and I
can carry Doc's shirts and things in mine. Git the hammer quick and I'll
help you fix it!" The pain in my breast was almost more than I could
bear.

"Lover," I said as I knelt down by him in the dim old hall and put my
arms around him as if to shield him from some blow I couldn't help being
aimed at him, "you wouldn't mind much, would you, if just this time your
Molly couldn't go with you? Your father is going to take good care of
you and--and maybe bring you back to me some day."

"Why, Molly," he said, flaring his astonished blue eyes at me, "'taint
me to be took care of! I ain't a-going to leave you here, for maybe a
bear to come out of a circus and eat you up, with me and Doc gone.
'Sides Doc ain't no good and maybe wouldn't help me hold the rope right
to keep the whale from gitting away. He don't know how to do like I tell
him like you do."

"Try him, lover, and maybe he will--will learn to--" I couldn't help the
tears that came to stop my words.

"Now you see, Molly, how you'd cry with that kiss-spot gone," he said
with an amused, manly, little tenderness in his voice that I had never
heard before, and he cuddled his lips against mine in almost the only
voluntary kiss he had given me since I had got him into his ridiculous
little trousers under his blouses. "You can have most a hundred kisses
every night if you don't say no more about not a-going and fix that
whale hook for me quick," he coaxed against my cheek.

Oh, little lover, little lover, you didn't know what you were saying
with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy, little paddie burned the
sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was
powerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you _are!_ You
are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit
and--and you ought to have been flesh of my flesh!

I don't know how I managed to answer Mrs. Johnson's call from my front
gate, but I sometimes think that women have a torture-proof clause in
their constitutions.

She and Aunt Bettie had just come up the street from Aunt Bettie's house
and the Pollard cook was following them with a large basket, in which
were packed the things Aunt Bettie was contributing to the entertainment
of the distinguished citizen. Mr. Johnson is Alfred's nearest kinsman in
Hillsboro, and, of course, he is to be their guest while he is in town.

"He'll be feeding his eyes on Molly, so he'll not even know he'