It gave them all a sensation when they found out
from the will just how well it was feathered. And it gave me one, too.
All that money would make me nervous if Mr. Carter hadn't made Doctor
John its guardian, though I sometimes feel that the responsibility of me
makes him treat me as if he were my step-grandfather-in-law. But all in
all, though stiff in its knees with aristocracy, Hillsboro is lovely and
loving; and couldn't inquisitiveness be called just real affection with
a kind of squint in its eye?

And there I sat on my front steps, being embraced in a perfume of
everybody's lilacs and peachblow and sweet syringa and affectionate
interest and moonlight, with a letter in my hand from the man whose two
photographs and many letters I had kept locked up in the garret for
years. Is it any wonder I tingled when he told me that he had never come
back because he couldn't have me and that now the minute he landed in
America he was going to lay his heart at my feet? I added his honors
to his prostrate heart myself and my own beat at the prospect. All the
eight years faded away and I was again back in the old garden down at
Aunt Adeline's cottage saying good-by, folded up in his arms. That's
the way my memory put the scene to me, but the word "folded" made me
remember that blue muslin dress again. I had promised to keep it and
wear it for him when he came back--and I couldn't forget that the blue
belt was just twenty-three inches and mine is--no, I _won't_ write
it. I had got that dress out of the old trunk not ten minutes after I
had read the letter and measured it.

No, nobody would blame me for running right across the garden to Doctor
John with such a real trouble as that! All of a sudden I hugged the
letter and the little book up close to my breast and laughed until the
tears ran down my cheeks.

Then before I went into the house I assembled my garden and had family
prayers with my flowers. I do that because they are all the family I've
got, and God knows that all His budding things need encouragement,
whether it is a widow or a snowball-bush. He'll give it to us!

And I'm praying again as I sit here and watch for the doctor's light to
go out. I hate to go to sleep and leave it burning, for he sits up so
late and he is so gaunt and thin and tired-looking most times. That's
what the last prayer is about, almost always,--sleep for him and no
night call!

LEAF SECOND

A LOVE-LETTER, LOADED

The very worst