A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill

Then came a day when, without apparent reason, the shadows lifted. She was tramping across the river flats, with Mike

owing near by, lo

s jus' settin' here steddyin' how good I'd feel ef de Cunnel could come a

over to Miss Ferney's, but she wasn't there. I want to get her to come and stay with

lak he's been well enough to go fer some tim

e's ears. "They say unless I sell the rest of Thornwood, we won't have mone

your head. Dem's ole maid notions, you ain't no ole maid yit! Why don't you git marr

assurance of youth. "And I am never going to leave Thornwood. If you see Miss Ferne

s they entered the garden. He was sitting in his wheel-chair with his books and manuscrip

o had run in the same groove for twenty years. The same surroundings, the same people, the same monotonous, daily routine had rendered him as ru

her across the borders, and birds made love in every bough, was enough to freshen the spirit of even a John Jay Queerington. His cosmic conscience, which usually worked overtime, stri

pon a rare, unclassified wild-flower, that piqued his curiosity and enlisted his interest. For two months he had depended almost entirely upon his young hoste

facts and fancies that he found stored away in Miss Lady's brain. Under ordinary circumstances he would have dismissed a pupil to whom clearness and accuracy were strangers, and whose attention wandered with every passing butterfly. In the class

she listened at all, had no method or system whatever. She simply waited for the hint, th

hat she frequently landed before h

in her loneliness. The well of his knowledge seemed to her fathomless, and she never tired of hangi

finished, the Doctor clo

e work," he said. "The rest remains with you.

nly I do hope it won't be to teach school,-t

you will marry," said the Doctor, tracing parallelograms

e table and her chin on her palms, flash

ieve in lov

in all its manifestations, filial,

ings, so that nothing else matters, just so they have each other. I read about it in novels and in poetry, but I don't see it.

e does not arrive, full panoplied on a snow-white steed, that it is not love. You, probably, like the rest, have read too many romantic novels. When yo

estly as if he had been

it usually la

" he r

he is twenty. But I never do things on time. I didn't even know I was sentim

They have given me the only chance I have had in years for undisturbed writing on the History that will stand for my life work. I must confess that I dread my return home. The noise and confusion, the constant invasio

t when everything else seemed to drop out. You explained things to me, and

and suggest," the Doctor said

nished Miss Lady

uch older man than he: the distance, at that moment, between forty a

. It makes me awfully lonesome when I think of your leaving. Down here you have just belonged to Miss Wuster and me, and once you get back

gress of your studies, and I shall come to see you from t

and you'll be company, and I shall be afraid of you. I am

t your pronunciation, and an occasional exagg

of all the time you have taken from your writin

disinterested. I have found you singularly helpful to me. I think I m

s about the nicest thing

as lifted to his, nor for the proximity of her glowing eyes

me exceedingly. It is not complex, nor subtle, but remarkably i

cteristics are undergoing vivisection; she could not have been more f

volution; "I am particularly anxious to see what effect it will have on a fresh, unsop

t to send me the cop

nce is better for you just now than poetry. What

ell, and the color

er there by the wall. I thought th

left sepals that terminate in a tube. Pliny tells us that in ancient days the warriors used the pe

orgot, I asked her to come. If she stays very long, just tel

," said the Doctor qu

he front porch and relieved h

g face suggested a squirrel's. "I thought having company you might need 'em. D

Don't you sell them in

abels. When I was a child, I wasn't allowed to

ho

see how you've eve

great privilege to have him here, He is a very dis

as soon have a fly under my mosquito bar as a

hat be too soon fo

eipts and spoil a bushel or two of cucumbers, but I said I'd come and I will. What is

"I may have to tea

land. You don't ne

house next. I am determined to hold on to T

n saving every nickel I made for nearly twenty years to buy back our place. From all t

, I a

girl has 'til she's thirty. After that they don't believe in any

d Miss Lady, training a rebell

with last spring. Mrs. Wicker said he hadn't a thought in his head but you. That he wor

ne absorbing, but she took t

s. Wicker that that youn

rried. What do women want to marry for anyway? Look at me! Forty years single and not one mi

or Miss Lady, leaning against the railing of th

er in Shelby County that's had the same school for fifteen years, ever since she was a plump, pretty gir

d suddenly and f

join the circus! I'd lots rather stand on one toe in fluffy,

he said as if in excuse for such flippancy. "I do believe you'

ey the winding stream danced in the shallows or loitered in brown pools to whisper secrets to the low-hanging boughs. The world seemed to her not onl

ctor has been refusing to lie down until you come out to the garden.

tes, and making corrections, she happy in having even a tiny share in his great work, and he finding her enthusiasm and interest a welcome condiment to stir his jaded app