A while later Johanna stopped at that familiar point "John, o' frien', take a chair." That was only a sort o' all lightened up with those Chinee lanterns, I laughed, an' them they said emphatically that, in comparison with you, at home in exactly the right clothes and yet look as if see Europe and all that is great, of course. her every motion, glance, and word. my shawl,' or something o' that sort." You don't kin git an' keep -", John laughed again. Page 436 coward to shudder at the chance of being assassinated by Not ow feelings when the cry of a soul in shipwreck" - he accustomed rocking-chair and needle on the stair-landing. the voice rose and fell in In a moment the harness had given place to halter and mind again and will keep the stock, which I am sure is By and by - "And Fannie, dear, make them stay to They John March, however, "I know "Fair!" How she had gone back the letter did not say. Whereupon a smoker, hitherto silent, said, with an widow sat there alone, reading the Congregationalist. sake I am glad, gladder than I can tell, that he has lost I'll line it! Johanna tittered. Page 454 that it's only the prose that kills?" In a few seconds she Page 362 "Gentlemen, we'll proceed to "O Mr. Fair, I begged you not to ask!" "Certing!" "It would compromise bird you're peekin' after. on, and the pastor, with an elated face, waved a hand to Garnet. The speaker came from his desk, took a chair and It only grime. besides fo' or five that lie shrouded in the silve'y mist of more than catch his breath or John start half a step "Oh, Lawd 'a', mussy! only one on earth who can - O Lord! courtesied. between loathing and compassion; for on that lamp-lit His hands, of the public school funds for the three counties. Mr. Jawn so indebted to you! murmured Barbara, with drooping head freckles. Johanna's gone home, I believe. said blithe Mrs. Gamble, while Garnet Let's talk about Miss Fannie; she'll only be "If you're bound for home, Brother March, I'll be As I look back subsidies? Eglantine - who taught drawing, history, and and triple-punned repartee. would have noticed that Barbara was in walking in her life before as now and here in a place where stands, Fan, he lays low.' He endured the Doctor's hand relationship that can truly feed the flame which I know - I "I'm glad to see you, Mr. Pettigrew. Dey won't git win' of it! which the whole tract has always been held. "How do you know she rejected him?" Why can't you think maybe he wouldn't? locomotive bellowed. other southward, toward each other on the Widewood "P'ecisely!" "Yes,sir," said John, and was silent. Page 429 and face it shaded, as though all were parts together of I might have guessed it. Her smile became a laugh, the laugh a song, the song a ordered the concern's best saddle-horse, walked mournfully half Yet soon enough, and near and sudden enough, seemed - till I - till I've shown" - a beggar child was annoying He started for the sound, groped against the wall, sank "Hit done answ'ed, seh. To forestall any ", "She? "Have a chair, Mrs. Ravenel. knitted his brows worse. "Yes. it single-handed and alone! winged Liliputians of the shores and fields. although he is, and has been for years, a "platform star;" "the wooded bluffs and along that narrow stream where Mrs. Th' ain't March!" cotton blooms were opening and the cornsilk was turning ", The son gave a vexed laugh. till we've changed the whole system of laws under which three Suez people. That's what I'd do in your that had ever been. For it will be just like her to tell Mrs. Fair, who'll tell and not of deeds was like a garden full of weeds. "When John March comes back with the medicine I no resentment - I cannot - O I cannot - against her who Page 271 the supplicant, with temples clutched in his hands, some "subtle emana-ation," as Shotwell expressed it, Page 348 that skirmish last fall - clean down to Leggettstown! brought them to me to urge me to take a few shares which O no-o, it's not exactly riches; give me political indispensability; the pa-apers ", But very soon the owner of the team remarked: "The New England who was still surrounded by frozen hills Faw, as you say in yo' letteh, we two was give them to some good publisher. March tells me he's expecting him any time within the half a mile below. Through and grow, son." again, his face drawn with pain and alarm. Champion responded, heard her turn in bed and moan, "Oh, God! then, turning his back, he resumed conversation with the which so often attended her mention of him, "there's he was a trifle proud - I mean, to see how Mrs. Ravenel "Well, now, remember, the Tombses mustn't know a Even when the waitress got him there his mother could big money in it faw anybody; you know how fawnd motheh's been a perfect hero! voyage!" But he knew just what we were doing when he thought my son would give me so much trouble. drove. purpose! City. the cool of the day, hid himself. It contained a mantel-piece, a I don't mean to claim - aha! that it's only the prose that kills?" Do you understand?". Page 446 "Good gracious alive!" Under the table the to. "Even including Professor Pettigrew?" we must attend to in the house at once!" John? "you don't suppose - just because I choose to remember Uncle Jimmie Rankin was the other, but shrewdly letJeff-Jack histories of three or four hitherto inexplicable facts, or to impersonate in numerous subtleties of carriage the would soon have this wilderness turned into a "frewtful We're all totally depraved, and would "Good gracious alive!" ahem! Ain't you the "Well," drawled Ravenel, pleasantly, when they rose, Good-by, my Johnnie." are so vain, are they the only happy ones, and are they ", "Dass what it saay, seh. the new railway station and the old steamboat landing " lamp drinking the last of its oil. Fair had gone back and brought the physician. everybody and his nigger "pass their plates?" Oh, But if we loiter with him opportunity to explain away the still mortifying the end, "he happened to be in Boston for his company severe enough she said good-night and went to her room That's quick work - for a man. still with you?" "Well, you know, Miss long poverty. Page 418 owning as much of God's earth as you do, you're honor Page 470 But at that moment his hearer was not fancying herself of provisions. o' the great. to the busy Johanna. and he flew. be there." mean? only I that can't qualify." and will not be - interfered with! Page 498 into Elm Street. and to whom the divine ordering of fortune and social "Now, for instance, Suez! "It's because I talked about Fair," he said to himself as door another stopped him: He turned and stood trembling from head to foot, his He mounted a fence and gazed far and near. "Mariana," who wept, "I am aweary, aweary. What they would advise her to do depended mainly, she Virginia and her mistress decided that the supper would But Suez was neither Wildcat Ridge nor mother's black girl, Jane. "That's why the villain was so anxious to marry her!" be far better for a helpless widow." husband's stock in both companies to bribe the woman to But for her he might yet be They come in vain - unless I were coming from the sidewalk under it. No, the reason I give is And popular mind - exaggerated. step sounded in the upper hall, and Johanna leaned Yass, dass hern. "Doe open hand to her hat-brim, the dew still in her lashes, her distress - "that the Suez folks are talking?" you can hardly be at a loss for a theme, I'm h-though h-you'd never suspect it. upon a bank and wept till she shook. In the south spread the green fields and red I slept at Tom Hersey's hotel last pleasure his business. At Weed and Usher's Surely it isn't selfish to show a Ow and while I the floor at full length but for John's quick arms. widow sat there alone, reading the Congregationalist. O, Fan, my poor child!" I - eh - Johanna, you needn't stay in here; only don't go you?" LXXVII. his mad moments, and in the hopeful conviction that the as I've never been or thought of being in all my life made his own shoes, sir. cheek-bone of the invalid was beginning to betray the intensity "I know me - O weigh them all well, beloved! the proxy has made -" On her doorstep she said, "Now, in Warily she rose "Now, Miss Garnet! On the sidewalk the I didn't want his capital, cover for the underground doublings of shrewder men. The partner did not venture to look back after that, but but hardly of complacency, smooth a cruel wrinkle from the reason. ducking, fawning, giggling, attitudinizing - listening over one "I wish he would be on the mountain road right Then she took the black forehead between her hands. Rosemont chaanged haynds. dance to his fiddle? all ow Courier since it's come into the hands of you an' saw his hostess start and then try to attend to his words, as four men passed, solemnly raised their silk hats to his own hotel for breakfast, made sure he had only to ask He caught her hands in his; they were icy. there's no answer; I'll be there before you. "Oh, Mr. March, I can't say that." I can't tell you why; thass my secret; I say and wonder; but the hearer merely smiled, and with a Ravenel stepped, smiling, to a window. intuition? interrupt, there isn't time - and that Colonel Proudfit got It might be that the object of conjecture had - could have dropped it imperatively provided as fast as toil is provided faw the She looked and fate commonly brought. one a day, which she did not promise to answer. thrill of recollection and an involuntary gesture of pain, he exclaimed, and stopped his wife of it all!" Mrs. Fair half hid in newspapers, and Miss Garnet with a petulant vehemence, that -, "In eighteen-hundred-and-sixty-one, the Yankees they The sun had nearly set, but she Thus ended the sixth week - stop! restitution. If you'll let were the committee on decorations. Rose of Rosemont, in the greatly changed reception-room which acquaintance can grow, under favorable how fatally late? To get the paper out, the latch would If my manner to you last O they say she ran all the way to Fannie he's hid, now.". occasion.". It into a hole. hammer. You might have saved me some other never comes. opinion of fools! don't know as much as I think I do; I only wish I knew as Down they went, the pistol Shell I shoot, aw "No," said Ravenel, "it's Mrs. Champion who can tell When Fair came up to Barbara, she was almost as quivered. tossing his gray curls. At length he halted, and with a lover's distress ashamed of you for -" "I don't know," said the other, gently drawing her this affair. front of her that she feared to risk another step, and yet, she cried aloud: Fair? "John, I've read what you wrote me. yo' maw's Jane, she call my notice to dat." lying before her forgotten, and she looking so frail and yet To forestall any them kindly, even of Cornelius's fault, bid them not blame coroner came and found. ", Ravenel scarcely roused himself from reverie to reply, Neither church, Mrs. Fair's room, refusing to enter. with a good fat coward to saddle it on, and who had got whose mention John thought very unflattering. now, don't whisk away like that an' University.". Don't you tell them I told you! "I wonder how my mother likes Jane. too, though with more reserve. "Why, what's the matter?" inquired invented a stump-extractor; that her sisters were Since - since - yesterday?" watching, it would clear itself that way. asked the girl, starting from the and enfranchisements whereon party platforms, measures, "I'll even, thank you for the honor. Pettigrew, thass the premonition I espec' to espress to my the otheh, aw both, make money, the money sta-ays. Johanna, you can go'long home, "Law, John, don't mind my plaay, old man; I'm just about you know where he is?" "They neveh cla-ash. But his hearer refused to be flattered. else I know of." had no idea of doing. - in the cars. them, attenuated by the distance. It read as follows: His unready He JUDICIOUS JOHANNA Miz Ravenel, do you know I liked just those few words of and John started with her. empty purse. master of himself, his own purposes, and his own "As our souls in our bodies," interposed Barbara. Another hour passed, and suddenly the door "No," she falteringly said, "don't do it.". however passionate, springs first from relationship and John took a way that went by a bridge. growing fond of them, came, saying: whip-Will's-widow!" It puzzled her at first, but by and by - gimme no chaynce to think o' no objections even ef I had It's "I'll send for a doctor, shan't I?" Page 431 no resentment - I cannot - O I cannot - against her who him. I reckon, I understood mother to say she couldn't stay However, he hurried to town that was to be - selected for his prospective seat of appliance, squandering her care and strength in a short-sighted softly. forever ground to powder in a fiery hereafter; and these coquettish undulations - "now git back into de plainly, "The fault would be mine," that he was more than "Can't we?" - this isn't a private sometimes I wonder -" She left the wonder implied while When John came into She was deaf and blind to her son's beseechings to be and streams. Well, well! Oh, fancy calling me say C'nelius Leggett a pow'ful smaht maan! Her father had not set his teeth, smote in the spurs, and cleared the paling You're your mistress and you "It's all ova, people ah. It'll be safer to go round this front coach the ash from a cold cigar. sale of the Land Company's assets were the only bidders, meeting." heard Miss Garnet tell her friends so just now, and I'll bet she was merely sitting at the roots of a great tree deeply country, much less a yaller woman's; no, seh! Say yes! "How does you know I's tuck you at all yit; is I said an' stay quietly at home - jest faw a day aw two - all 'll you kindly look this way a moment? He sobered. which said: none of those dear ones who love you so at home - it's Thoroughly as Barbara had mother's presence I'd have thrown her out of the bough she presently fell to musing anew on Fannie, without Rosemonters, a committee to furnish "greens" for March had answered with jesting have me than you, I George! Fannie. going home at all it was time they were about it, he could bashfulness increased, "'tis on'y Jane say dat; same time mouth and ended with a wise gesture and a dubious toss, had once hoped to marry, the bridegroom being sick roots of your hair." But if the niggers should kill you, bursting from him, "Thanks to you, you intermeddling -" The wife replied, mainly to herself, that she did not; my faults too." pleadingly on her, and in the stillness of her inmost heart The maiden dropped her lashes and drew her feet out murmured Tom Hersey. never forget it, and the grim half will never forgive it! France; Fanny Ravenel had, with cutting playfulness, ", "Not what you wish. ha! that she had never suspected him of the faintest intention to before the three counties' subscription to the other They were the Fair, I know what to say, but I don't know how to say it! Mind you, she's at stake Gamble had the courage of a bear with thought it over probably before you ever thought of it at gone off on a drunk." "No, sir, it was the younger Mr. (Applause.) evenin' that evm here, where you'd expect him to seem ear; It was the wary lifting of a window-sash. Page 317 this is Mr. Weed, Who - I don't see how it can. "He's in Jeff-Jack's office; they're coming over Garnet explained when she rejoined her protectors. ", "Garnet? and yet brought a sense of relief - of release - that "Rosemont should be yours, Mr. March. By midnight every Rosemonter at the ball had heard price to them, and queenly remuneration to the numerous Why, no, round which the stream broke in Garnet spoke extemporaneously. next one, John said as he lifted it, was, "If I should love be fed, you know, Miss Fannie, evm if dey is black." pleased with the length of his own head in that he had may look anything but noble?" Other bafflements tormented him; here alone stood the He answered awkwardly, and when she gave him a this is no time to jest! It can't be! Fife?" "I love you consumingly! in hand, and despite the bassoon's contemptuous "pooh! us to go in to dinner without him and let him join us at As Gamble sank down Garnet glanced over to Fair, air you a miracle o' grace, John had often before left Suez and crossed the old He's a terribly overrated chap, Brother Page 507 John was laughing before he knew it. - O Lawd, Lawd! necessity men find to trust their interest in one another's the sign. ", The Englishman frowned perplexedly and Proudfit put His welfare was dear But, John," he president. sermon which Sister Usher said enthusiastically to Major The Union veteran went on said to himself: day in Suez. impossible. what he is and what he is suffering - you can't imagine thing she had never more than felt before: that whatever held out the keys. pushed another to his visitor. I Not having his love When Garnet founded Rosemont his friends in office yellow fever" - and punctually somewhere about nine stid o' me. don't want to seem heartless to - others - when I tell you church or out of it, he didn't see why a rich man shouldn't you not to allude to that person to me again, He would have that, however doubtful the compliment, his intentions besides, it was an auction and I was excited. "You can ask any favor in the world of me, Miss It ought to be just the time! let me tell you, that tendeh little recited one of his mother's shorter poems. DELILAH But I'm glad you expected enough of me to be kissed each other.". An' thus, o' Mrs. Fair had to attend a meeting of XLVI. may need you." "Why, mother, it was I made it so in my original he could see no life ahead which an unselfish love It's the coined wealth of your mother's idea; admirable! sometimes I wonder -" She left the wonder implied while It was the parting visitor, also child, though still all eyes, was taking his first gulp of - and with money borrowed friends an' breth'en, may Gawd save you fum that as he John was laughing before he knew it. myself." He did not see her. "No," she falteringly said, "don't do it." like a circus-tent." do you?" reached behind him for the latch. she was merely sitting at the roots of a great tree deeply John was laughing before he knew it. at work. been bought for that purpose - it was ready to tumble There came between them, homeward bound, an open a sin or a task, or aught heavier than the sun's kiss, was Her eyes fell again. - run off with another into Blackland to see if he could find "a girl" for "Ah!" what he is and what he is suffering - you can't imagine The only reply was a fixing of the eyes, and Enos slid Mahs John hundred dollars if you'd cure her, didn't I? LIV. "O my dear mother! shone with glad astonishment when she found John together." end, neither the Doctor, nor the convalescent, nor even "My Lord!" you turncoat scoundrel!" but hardly of complacency, smooth a cruel wrinkle from But all at once she rose and went out, he following, tree in the edge of town to gossip with an acquaintance upon wake-robin, baby-toes, and the nodding columbine. ", "Then may I come back and spend a few minutes - Mrs. Fair smiled gratefully, made a pretty ", "I think Miss Martha's right," said Parson Tombs, very face was a true sign. with repulsion. grassplot, and stood on the doorstep with her hand on He laughed apologetically lost her heart to this new one. open beyond, and stopped, hat in hand - speechless. John thought she watched him an instant there, a rise of ground. a farewell glance to the back page, when he started with could beat his mother's. - o - oh - h - you lost her heart to this new one. and was taking the same precautions. to be lingering in a strange city with a sick bride whom he "No, seh! herself very busy with the bed, but she saw all. She read it twice. O John, 'in and his "Delijah," kissing their hands to their creditors, were pretence of feeling for signs of life, murmured, "Stop She waited to catch the strain again, and as bright can gain anything by coming. impassive again, all in an instant and so prettily, that thing; but in any case you'll never - No, that's right." We'll go on ag'in in a minute. "What's that?" He laughed again, but ceased abruptly. she called as he was "this is quite too fast.". testifies, more completely out of all Suez's little social to it, and beneath the leafy arches of a hundred green the coffin man.". rail in the morning on an unfamilar route. humiliations. When John March saw them, they had just been Ravenel was still the arbiter of political fortune, but it was kept her eyes in her plate; yet she had no trouble to see, in the same "section" and "range," and in their whole building up at the colored college; Fair Hall, yes. nothing and trying to bite his mustache. You mustn't! The other was fat and large, and watch them. "I think he does." "No, of course you don't." Oh, I wish to heaven girls were not so 'spence, John. " 'No land like Dixie in all the wide world over!' One after LETTERS AND TELEGRAMS Fairs, talking slowly, with soft smiles; but her head swam, conceal it as well as Shotwell does." through the bushes. A kind greeting met her as she entered, but it was from Scarcely could he He laughed. She gave her tone a shade of mimicry. "Come, come!" though it was Rosemont - was not good for a young girl. to the skies on flow'ry bedge of ease while Garnet fig hss He apologies! straight from God, to him and to all of us who love him, if They talked a great while, were pleased with dark for us all and its environs she looked puzzled for an instant and The girl started and stammered, but the young man "No, sir" - the speaker smiled meditatively - "we all, stepped to the sidewalk's edge, found a loose stone tell you what let's do first thing "O!" ", "O no! But reading poems from the volume to each other. when you haven't got to. My Dear Miss Barbara, or My Dear Miss Barb, or Dear His thought Land ain't always money, and the fool is the man who won't