“But he’ll have his mother left,” I said quietly but very encouragingly.  I seemed to see the little green tendril that had unclasped from the oak turning on its stem and winding tight again.

“Miss Mathers was encouraging Cousin Martha to go to Colorado to see Elizabeth and her family for a long visit this winter.  She hasn’t seen Elizabeth since her mother died and she was so much interested in the easy way of traveling these days, as Miss Mathers described it, that she asked her to write for a time-table and what a ticket costs, just this morning.  I really ought not to desert Cousin James.”

“But think how lonely Mr. Haley is down in the parsonage and of his influence on Henrietta,” I urged.

“Yes, I do feel drawn in both ways,” sighed the poor tender gourd.  “And then you will be here by yourself, so you can watch over Cousin James, as much as your work will allow you, can’t you, Evelina?”

“Yes, I’ll try to keep him from being too much alone,” I answered with the most deceitful unconcern.

“I see him coming to supper and I must go, for I want to be with him all I can, if I am to leave him so soon.  I may not make up my mind to it,” with which threat Sallie departed and left me alone in the gloaming, a situation which seems to be becoming chronic with me now.

If I had it, I’d give another hundred thousand dollars to the cause, to hear that interview between Sallie and the Dominie.  I wager he’ll never know what happened and would swear it didn’t, if confronted with a witness.

And also I felt so nervous with all this asking-in-marriage surging in the atmosphere that it was with difficulty that I sat through supper and listened to Jane and Polk, who had come in with her, plan town sewerage.  To-morrow night I knew the moon wouldn’t rise until eleven o’clock, and how did I know anyway that Sallie’s emancipation might not get started on the wrong track and run into my Crag?  His chivalry would never let him refuse a woman who proposed to him and he’ll be in danger until I can do it and tell the town about it.

Jane and Polk had promised Dickie and Nell to motor down Providence Road as far as Cloverbend in the moonlight, and I think Caroline and Lee were going too.  Polk looked positively agonized with embarrassed sorrow at leaving me all alone, and it was with difficulty that I got them off.  I pleaded the greatest fatigue and my impatience amounted to crossness.

After they had gone I dismissed Jasper and Petunia and locked the back doors, put out all the lights in the house and retired to the side steps, determined to be invisible no matter who called—­and wait!

And for one mortal hour there I sat alone in that waning old moonlight, that grew colder and paler by the minute, while the stiff breeze that poured down from Old Harpeth began to be vicious and icy as it nipped my ears and hands and nose and sent a chill down to my very toes.