"Oh, Jack, the divinity of it! I am ashamed of all I have said before! Tear down that pedigree from your wall! Forget all I've said about marrying people off like animals—about improving the breed—about anything but love—love—love. For, when my lips touched his, life grew different! I had never felt it before! From that moment I was in love—divinely, gloriously in love!
"He keeled over, of course. It all but killed him. It was the crisis of the disease of thirty years' standing, but I had my nerve with me, and when he came to he was so bashful and happy, Jack. He said shyly, 'But, darling Lucretia, don't you think our parents might object; wouldn't it be romantic if we ran away?'
"And we did, Jack, that very night. I had him put a ladder up to his bed room window, and that night I slipped out, brought him down the ladder, and we ran off to town and were married!
"Oh, it was so romantic, such a sweet dream! And here we are in his old home in Germany and so happy!
"Forgive and forget all that I have ever said about people falling in love, for mine at last was the hardest fall!"
CHAPTER III
A NIGHT WITH CAPTAIN SKIPPER
Blessed is that man who is born with the saving grace of humor! Blessings on the memory of my Celtic sires!
One night when Eloise and the twins were away, I rode over to spend the night with my brother Ned. He had been elected to Congress from the Hermitage District, and together we were to frame a Forestry Bill—the first of that series of acts which have steadily legislated toward the Conservation of our national resources, and which will yet lead on to greater things; first and foremost of which, and most vital, will be the taking over for preservation by the national Government of the entire Appalachian mountain range, the forests of which are at the headwaters of nearly all the Eastern half of our country.
My brother was not home, but the others were, and to my great delight a girl baby as much like her mother as two turquoise shells. Little Sister had grown into a slim, pretty girl, and Captain Skipper, more positive than ever, began early begging his mother, since his father was away, to let him sleep with his Uncle Jack that night.