"A lot of times the gourd vine grows so strong that she doesn't realize she is supporting her family by her own strength long after the oak has faded away in her coils and sprouted up from an acorn in some other locality," said Jessie, as she, too, puffed a ring of smoke in Nickols' direction.
"Is this agriculture, biology or religion we are discussing?" demanded Harriet with a laugh as we all rose and went to the edge of the porch to meet Billy and Mark and father, who had with them the beloved "Minister."
"Congratulations and condolences, Mr. Powers," said Mrs. Sproul as she laid her hand in father's.
"On what score, my dear madam," he demanded.
"You know I asked for Charlotte on my fifteenth and her tenth birthday, Judge," Nickols said, with his ready grace in any situation, and he came and stood beside father and took his hand in his with the gentle affection a girl might have shown the older man. "You said 'yes' then and it has taken all these years to make her echo the word," and as he finished speaking he held out his arm and drew me close to father and himself.
"Hurrah!" exclaimed Mark, but I saw him exchange a glance of amusement with Harriet, and Nell gave him a warning little squeeze of the arm.
"Bless you both," said father, as he gave us both a hug.
All this I saw and noted before I raised my eyes to meet the jeweled eyes under dull gold that I knew were gazing straight at me as Gregory Goodloe stood in the background against the dark vine while the rejoicings over the announcement of my betrothal were enacted. Somehow I felt I could not make myself face their gaze, which yet I knew I must. I met a flash that burned down into the very darkest spots in my nature and illuminated them all. There was not a trace of male anger or demand in the gaze but a cold valuation of me and the entire situation that burned me as ice burns raw flesh, then over all of us there suddenly poured from the same source a tenderness that was as radiant as the summer sun.
"Yes, God bless us all!" he exclaimed, as he held out his hands to all of us, one of which Nickols took, with a swift challenging glance that in the radiance softened to confidence, and the other father took and fairly clung to in his happiness. I was glad, glad that I didn't have to endure the touch of his hand on mine after that glance, but not for one instant did my heart accuse his radiance of being dramatics. I rather felt that it came from a warmth within him by which everybody else in the world might be comforted but for which I would forever be cold.
"I want to be worth her, old man," Nickols said to him with a curiously pleading note in his voice, and he, too, seemed to me to be clinging to some of the strength that was not for me.