I was tempted to say, “Why not my heart?” I was glad she didn’t know how good that heart did feel under my tucker when the boy brought that basket of fish from Judge Wade’s fishing trip Saturday.  I have firmly determined not to blush any more at the thought of that gorgeous man—­at least outwardly.

“Don’t you think it is very—­very lonely to be a widow, Mrs. Johnson?” I asked timidly to see what she would say about Mr. Johnson, who is really lovely, I think.  He gives me the gentlest understanding smile when he meets me on the street of late weeks.

“Lonely, lonely, Molly?  You talk about the married state exactly like an old maid.  Don’t do it—­it’s foolish, and you will get the lone notion really fastened in your mind and let some fool man find out that is how you feel.  Then it will be all over with you.  I have only one regret, and it is that if I ever should be a widow Mr. Johnson wouldn’t be here to see how quickly I turned into an old maid, by the grace of God.”  Mrs. Johnson sews by assassinating the cloth with the needle, and as she talked she was mending the sleeve of one of Mr. Johnson’s shirts.

“I think an old maid is just a woman who has never been in love with a man who loves her.  Lots of them have been married for years,” I said, just as innocently as the soft face of a pan of cream, and went on darning one of Billy’s socks.

“Well, be that as it may, they are the blessed members of the women tribe,” she answered, looking at me sharply.  “Now I have often told Mr. Johnson—­” but here we were interrupted in what might have been the rehearsal of a glorious scrap by the appearance of Aunt Bettie Pollard, and with her came a long, tall, lovely vision of a woman in the most wonderful close clingy dress and hat that you wanted to eat on sight.  I hated her instantly with the most intense adoration that made me want to lie down at her feet, and also made me feel like I had gained all the more than twenty pounds that I have slaved off me and doubled them on again.  I would have liked to lead her that minute into Doctor John’s office and just to have looked at him and said one word—­“string-bean!” Aunt Betty introduced her as Miss Chester from Washington.

“Oh, my dear Mrs. Carter, how glad I am to meet you!” she said as she towered over me in a willowy way, and her voice was lovely and cool almost to slimness.  “I am the bearer of so many gracious messages that I am anxious to deliver them safely to you.  Not six weeks ago I left Alfred Bennett in Paris and really—­really his greetings to you almost amounted to steamer luggage.  He came down to Cherbourg to see me off, and almost the last thing he said to me was, ’Now, don’t fail to see Mrs. Carter as soon as you get to Hillsboro; and the more you see of her the more you’ll enjoy your visit to Mrs. Pollard.’  Isn’t he the most delightful of men?” She asked me the question, but she had the most wonderful way of seeming to be talking to everybody at one time, so Mrs. Johnson got in the first answer.