I'm doing it all wrong! I had the most beautiful human love for him in my heart and he thought it was all dastardly, cold coquetting. An awful spark has been struck out of the flint. I'm not worthy to experiment with this dreadful man-and-woman question. I just laid my head down on my arms, resting on my knees and cowered at Polk's feet.
"Don't—Evelina, I didn't mean it." he said quickly in a shaken voice. But he did!
I couldn't answer him and as I sat still and prayed in my heart for some words to come that would do away with the horror I heard Sallie's voice from my front walk, and she and Mr. Haley, each carrying a sleeping twin, came around the corner of the porch.
That interruption was a direct answer to prayer, for God knew that I just must have time to think before having this out with Polk. I sometimes feel ashamed of the catastrophes I have to pray quick about, but what would I do if I couldn't?
I don't know how I got through the rest of this evening, but I did—I pray for sleep. Amen!
Watching the seasons follow each other in the Harpeth Valley gives me the agony of a dumb poet, who can feel though not sing.
It was spring when I came down here four months ago, a young, tender, mist-veiled, lilac-scented spring that nestled firmly in your heart and made it ache with sweetness that you hardly understood yourself.
But before I knew it the young darling, with her curls and buds and apple-blooms had gone and summer was rioting over the gardens and fields and hills, rich, lush colored, radiant, redolent, gorgeous, rose-scented and pulsing with a life that made me breathless. Even the roads along the valley were bordered with flowers that the sun had wooed to the swooning point.
But this week, early as it is, there has been a hint of autumn in the air, and a haze is beginning to creep over the whole world, especially in the early mornings, which are so dew-gemmed that they seem to be hinting a warning of the near coming of frost and snow.
My garden has grown into a perfect riot of blooms, but for the last two weeks queer slugs have begun to eat the tender buds that are forming for October blooming, and I have been mourning over it by day and by night and to everybody who will listen.