I took possession of it and carried it to a bench in the garden that backs up against the purple sprayed lilacs and is flanked by two rows of tall purple and white iris that stand in line ready for a Virginia reel with a delicate row of the poet’s narcissus across the broad path.  I love my flowers.  I love them swaying on their stems in the wind, and I like to snatch them and crush the life out of them against my breast and face.  I have been to bed every night this spring with a bunch of cool violets against my cheek and I feel that I am going to flirt with my tall row of hollyhocks as soon as they are old enough to hold up their heads and take notice.  They always remind me of very stately gentlemen and I have wondered if the fluffy little butter and eggs weren’t shaking their ruffles at them.

A real love-letter ought to be like a cream puff with a drop of dynamite in it.  Alfred’s was that kind.  I felt warm and happy down to my toes as I read it and I turned around so old Lilac Bush couldn’t peep over my shoulder at what he said.

He wrote from Rome this time, where he had been sent on some sort of diplomatic mission to the Vatican, and his letter about the Ancient City on her seven hills was a prose-poem in itself.  I was so interested that I read on and on and forgot it was almost toast-apple time.

Of course, anybody that is anybody would be interested in Father Tiber and the old Colosseum, but what made me forget the one slice of dry toast and the apple was the way he seemed to be connecting me up with all those wonderful old antiquities that had never even seen me.  Because of me he had felt and written that poem descriptive of old Tiber, and the moonlight had lit up the Colosseum just because I was over here lighting up Hillsboro, Tennessee, with Mr. Carter dead.  Of course that is not the way he put it all, but there is no place to really copy what he did say down into this imp book and, anyway, that is the sentiment he expressed, boiled down and sugared off.

That’s just what I mean—­love boiled down and sugared off is mighty apt to get an explosive flavor, and one had better be careful with that kind if one is timid; which I’m not.  As I said, also, I am ready for a little taste of life, so I read on without fear.  And, to be fair, Alfred had well boiled his own last paragraph.  It snapped; and I jumped and gasped both.  I almost thought I didn’t quite like it and was going to read it over again to see, when there came a procession from over to Doctor John’s and I laid the bombshell down on the bench.

First came the red setter that is always first with Doctor John, and then he came himself, leading Billy by the hand.  It was Billy, but the most subdued Billy I ever saw, and I held out my arms and started for him.

“Wait a minute, please, Molly,” said the doctor in the voice he always uses when he’s punishing Billy and me.  “Bill came to apologize to you for being rude to your—­your guest.  He told me all about it and I think he’s sorry.  Tell Mrs. Carter you are sorry, son.”  When that man speaks to me as if I were just any old body else, I hate him so it is a wonder I don’t show it more than I do.  But there was nothing to say and I looked at Billy and Billy looked at me.