“Well, I’m glad she went,” said Alicia.  “Ladies that do up their heads in blankets and won’t answer when they’re spoken to, ought to go.”

Mrs. Scarboro, Judge Gatchell, and one of my old ladies were dining with us that night, for which I thanked Heaven.  Judge Gatchell discovered in himself a fund of sly humor that astonished everybody, and Miss Emmeline was like a November rose, sweet with a shy and belated girlishness, rarer for a touch of frost.  And The Author was in a fairly good humor because they let him alone.

Mr. Nicholas Jelnik dutifully put in his appearance after dinner.  The Author was balefully polite to him, Alicia shyly friendly.  I had on a new frock, and the knowledge that it was becoming gave me a courage I should otherwise have lacked.  A new frock, pink powder, and a smile, have saved many a fainting feminine soul where prayer and fasting had failed.

The gentleman who had blandly announced my engagement to himself only last night assumed no airs of proprietorship, but was placidly content to let me sit and talk to Mr. Johnson, who was holding forth on the merits of our Rhode Island Reds as against either barred Plymouth Rocks or White Leghorns, and the variety of vegetables and small fruits in our kitchen-garden, so admirably planned by Schmetz, so carefully and neighborly looked after both by him and Riedriech.  From gardens, Mr. Johnson went to cattle; he had a delight in cows, and our cow was a Jersey with a cream-colored complexion, large black eyes, and the sentimental temperament.  We called her the Kissing Cow, because she couldn’t see the secretary without trying to bestow upon him slobbering salutes.

He paused in his homely talk to smile at something The Author had just said.  Then his eyes strayed to Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, being talked to by Mrs. Scarboro and an apple-faced Confederate with pellucid blue eyes and a renowned trigger-finger.

“That is the most gifted—­and detached—­human being I have ever known,” said the secretary.  “But it is his misfortune to have no saving responsibilities.  What he needs is to fall in love with the right woman and marry her.”

“You mean he should marry some great lady, some dazzling beauty?  Naturally.”

“Heaven forbid!” said the secretary, with unexpected vigor.  “No, no, Miss Smith, that is not what such a man as Nicholas Jelnik needs!”

“But it may be what he wants,” said I.

“I should never think so, myself,” Mr. Johnson replied thoughtfully; “and I have seen a good deal of him.  No, Jelnik doesn’t want great beauty; he has enough of it himself.  For the same reason, he doesn’t want brilliant qualities.  He needs quiet, dependable goodness, the changeless and unswerving affection of a steadfast heart.”

But I could not agree with this simple-minded young man, who had in himself the qualities he named.  Why, if Nicholas Jelnik asked only for a changeless love, I could have given him full measure, even to the running over thereof!