The Desired Woman

d, mist-draped mountain. The beautiful valley was flooded with the soft golden light. An indescribable luster seemed to breathe from every dew-laden stalk of cotton or corn, plan

g. Pigs were grunting and squealing, cows were mooing, a donkey was b

of the grave. I must have two natures. At this moment I feel as if I'd rather die than sweat and stew over investments and speculations in a bank as I have been doing, and yet I may be sure that the thing will clutch me again. One word of Delbrid

heard the clatter of utensils and dishes, and smelt the aroma of boiling coffee and frying ham. Already his appetite was sharpened as if by the mountain air. He decid

"I did not think you would rise so ear

this startling beauty, be the slip of a timid girl he had so lightly treated three years ago? What hair, what eyes, what palpitatin

like a log. It is the first real rest I have had since-since I was here bef

t to be!" she cried, the corners of her mouth curving bewitchin

ing somewhere," he said, still in

illed with medicine in the pocket of her white apron. "His baby, little Robby, was taken sick a f

see you at supper," Mostyn said, turning with her to

efore the breakfast-bell rings. It is not far. I am awfully sor

wisdom," Mostyn jested. "Only eighte

ast night that they were actually harming the poor little baby, and I set about to calm them the very first thing. I can't begin to tell you how they went on. Think of it, they had actually given up and were crying-bot

s regarding her admiringly. "It would b

his mood and deeper. "Do you know," she said, after she had passed th

d, as he walked beside her

htfully, "such well-meaning persons as the Barnetts would not ha

amely, "but you know really that we ought to have

will. God intends for persons to love each other. Love is the one divine thing that we can be absolutely sure of. Annie and Tobe can't help themselves. They are out in a storm. It is beating them

ty of expression clutched him so firmly that he

a week, which she was giving to her people. She had only two dresses, the tattered bag of a thing she worked in and another which she kept for Sundays. Tobe met her and talked to her one day while he was hauling cotton to the factory, and something in her poor wretched face attracted him, or maybe it was her sweet voice, for it is as mellow as music. She wasn't well-had a cough at the time-and he had read something in

ouble began," Mostyn

he hardest worker in this valley. But ill luck clung to him like a leach. The drouth killed his first crop, and the winter caught him in debt. Then Annie got sick-she had exposed herself to the bad weather milking a

love, without do

red. "Sometimes it seems to make their poor sha

are!" Mostyn paused, and she turned to h

ou mean?"

mand. "I mean-that-that what you say sounds different from what one would naturally expect.

re, and I don't like to be that way. I am afraid I read too much poetry. It fairly sings in my hea

ch? You?" Mo

don't mind it now. One is obliged to open school with prayer, too, and it mustn't be worded the same way each time or

e a debating societ

chool twice a month, and the patrons took a big interest in it and began to make insinuations that my school ought to be represented. They talke

aid, admiringly, "and y

ourse, I'm joking now, but the women all take up for me and applaud everything I say, whether it has a point to it or not. 'Whole show!'

your society take up?" Mos

nd scientific magazines, and he fairly floors us-there I go again; when I talk I either grab the st

Mostyn suggested

a good many stayed over for the debate. We all tried to show off because he was present, and it was a religious subject. It w

were you on?"

such a grossly material age as ours. Neither side won in that debate-the judges couldn't agree. I wish you had been here last month. We had up a subject that you could have helped me on. The question was: Which is the better place to rear a man, the city or the country? Or, in other words, can the mind of man develop in a busy, crowded place as well as in a quiet spot in the country? I was on the side of the rural districts that night, and we won. We had no trouble showing that the majority of great chara

ps he could kill the temptation to gain by sordid business methods; perhaps he could subdue the reluctant intention to marry for ulterior motives regardless of the magnitude of the temptation. It really was not too late. He couldn't remember having said anything to Mitchell or his daughter which would bind him in any absolute sense. Yes, the ideal was the thing. Providence had rescued him from his recent financial danger, and meant this encounter as a chance for redemption. He could make some sort of compromise with old Jefferson Henderson-a reasonable sum of money to one so hard pressed for funds would not only silence the too active tongue, but win his gratitude and the approval of all business men. Then there was the other thing-the thing he scarcely dared think of in the p

to flight as she pointed to an opening between the trees of the wood on the right, "you can see

of the sun. "It is Saunders's pride," he said. "Atlanta is becoming more and more distasteful to him. He is never really happy any

He works in the fields like a day-lab

t of good books; he comes to our debates sometimes and seems very much interested. We all like him. The boys declare

"and still he's practical. He has a long head on him-nev

he spaces between the logs were filled with dried clay. It had a mud-and-stick chimney, from the cracks of which the smoke oozed. It contained only one room, was roofed with crudel

lank young man appeared at the door. He wore a ragged, earth-stained shirt and patched pants. His yellowish hair was tousled, a scant tuft of beard

y now, Tobe?

und, and in his tattered, gapin

er. If anything, he don't git his breath as free as he did. Annie's mighty ni

wered. She turned to Mostyn. "Wai

the mountain was lost in the lifting mist along its base and sides. The level growing fields stretched away to the north in a blaze of warming yellow. A boy was leading a harnessed horse along

nders for his model instead of that crack-brained Delbridge who had the hide of an ox and n

ble tenderness which pervaded her attitude and movement. He was reminded of a picture of a Madonna he had seen in a gallery in New

Barnett. He approached Most

" he asked. "I heard Tom Drake

you think the baby is now

ghed. "I believe it would have died in the night i

ght I heard some one calling out at the

lly, but they don't know half o' the good she does on the quiet. She tries to keep 'em from findin' out what she does. I know I'm grateful to 'er. If the Lord don't give me a chance to repay 'er for her kindness to me an' mine I'll never be satisfied." The speaker's voice had grown husky, and he now choked up. Silence fell. It was broken by a sweet voice in the cabin humming an old plantation lullab

medicine an' wants to put it to sleep. It will sleep for her, but won't for me or Tobe. We have sent for a doctor, but we d

ghed. "They are all out for cases whar t

ng with strange new elation. He was sure she still liked him. She showed it in her eyes, in her tone of voic

swung the gate open. "The bell's done rung. I seed you an' Dolly walkin' off, an' I was afe