It seems that as his father is one of the most influential directors and largest stockholders in this new branch of the Cincinnati and Gulf railroad he has got the commission for making the plans for all the stations along the road, and he wants to give me the commission for drawing all the gardens for all the station-yards.  It will be tremendous for both of us so young in life, and I never dared hope for such a thing.  I had only hoped to get a few private gardens of some of my friends to laze and pose over, but this is startling.  My mind is beginning to work on in terms of hedges and fountains already and Dickie may be coming South any minute.

And besides the hedges and gravel paths I have a feeling that Dickie’s father and the Crag and Sallie’s girl-babies are fomenting around in my mind getting ready to pop the cork of an idea soon.  The combination feels like some kind of a hunch—­I sat still for a long time and let it seethe, while I took stock of the situation.

There is a strange, mysterious kind of peace that begins to creep across the Harpeth Valley, just as soon as the sun sinks low enough to throw the red glow over the head of Old Harpeth.  I suppose it happens in other hill-rimmed valleys in other parts of the Universe, but it does seem as if God himself is looking down to brood over us, and that the valley is the hollow of His hand into which he is gathering us to rest in the darkness of His night.  I felt buffeted and in need of Him as I sank down under the rose-vine over the porch and looked out across my garden to the blue and rose hills beyond.

I have been in Glendale a whole month now, and I can’t see that my influence has revolutionized the town as yet.  I don’t seem to be of half the importance that I thought I was going to be.  I have tried, and I have offered that bucket of love that I thought up to everybody, but whether they have drunk of it to profit I am sure I can’t say.  In fact, my loneliness has liquefied my gaseous affection into what almost looks like officiousness.

Still, I know Uncle Peter is happier than he ever was before, because he has got me to come to as a refuge from Aunt Augusta, a confidante for his views of life that he is not allowed to express at home, and also the certainty of one of Jasper’s juleps.

Sallie has grown so dependent on me that my shoulders are assuming a masculine squareness to support her weight.  I am understudying Cousin James to such an extent over at Widegables that I feel like the heir to his house.  Cousin Martha sends for me when the chimney smokes and the cows get sick.  I have twice changed five dollars for little Cousin Jasmine, and sternly told the man from out on their farm on Providence Road that he must not root up the lavender bushes to plant turnip-greens in their places.  I afterwards rented the patch from him to grow the lavender because he said he couldn’t lose the price that the greens would bring him “for crotchets.”