The Tinder-Box

for a convenient time and attends strictly to business, while a woman takes up and coddles the tend

& G. railroad stations, and, of course, I am going to do them. I'm interested in them and I'm sensible of the honor it is to get the chance of making them

ng him a party and that Nell is always there, for he hasn't

r my house all day and into the scandalous hours of the night, which in Glendale begin at eleven o'clock and pass t

ns and honeysuckle blossoms wait for no man and no woman especially. They are both fading, and I've never got the spot to myself more than a minute at a time yet. The Crag, with absolutely no knowledge of my intentions, e

at I am dead to even friendship by night. Jane is doing over Glendale from city limits to the ri

accomplishing it so that he will think he has done it entirely by himself, but will tell the next man he meets that there is nothing in the world like a tine e

anite slab that would er made the Glendale volunteers of '61 feel uncomfortable like they would do in the beds in the city hotels. Great i

cle Peter," I agreed w

the egg-money they have got in that Equality Quilting Society-some kind of horse sense epidemic has broken out in this town, horse sense, Evelina, hey?" A

eginning of what is going to b

she said to me to-day, looking at me in a benign and slightly confused way from behind her glasses. "Mr. Hayes and I were just talking some of them over to-night, and he

Polk, Jane dear," I answered with trepidation, hoping and praying that the inquisition

teadily to your profession. I feel sure that when these garden drawings are done, you and Mr. Hall will have found your correct places in each other's lives and it will be just a glorious example of how superbly a man and woman can work to

ight to sink behind Old Harpeth, she wasn't going to leave me weakly lonesome.

unt of my having proposed to the man of my choice in this strong-minded book, adding a few words of sage advice for the Five, locking it and handing it, key an

t back and blot or tear out some of the things I have written. I can

e recalled me to the question in hand by saying wistfully. "I feel that I have never ha

gging means south of Mason and Dixon's line. From later developments I am glad she ha

asmine, with Cousin Annie and Mary, with Mrs. Hargrove puffing along behind them. They had

uantities at a good price. She had shown it to the little old ladies who had been secretly grieving at the separation from their garden out on their poorly rented farm, and the leaven had worked-on Mrs. Hargrove also. They go back to the farm and she with them! She had decided on raising

ago, as is a pet kitten of barking at the family dog, "but we do so dread to break it to dear James, because we feel that he may think we are not happy under his roof and

rs that didn't rise would have been real ones, too, for I found that, down in the corner of my heart, I had adored the picture of my oak with the tender lit

st and hardest. Sallie came over just as soon as the other delegation had got home to take the twins off her hands.

ht it would be cowardly of a woman not to show a man that she loved him, if he for any reason was not willing to make the first advances to her?" Sallie is perfectly lovely in the faint lavender and p

d without the slightest suspicion of what was coming. "But I do think, Sallie, it

dence was a man's most precious heritage," Sallie gently mused out

I asked with my cheeks in a flame but determined to stand my ground. "It does seem to me that nature puts her in a position to demand so much support from him in

horse I had mounted on the subject of Mamie

y League about drinking water in the public school building. Mamie has learned to make, with pink cheeks and shining eyes, the quaintest little speeches that always carry the house-and even made one at

earer than that and I put it away in that jewel-bo

, down to the chubby-kins next to the baby,-and Mamie was sitting flat on the grass in front of them nursing little Ned, with big Ned sitting beside her with his arm around both her and the baby. He was looking first down into her face, and then at the industrious kiddie getting his supper from the maternal foun

n are the most wonderful in the world and they are ours any way we get them. They

I could live on eighteen hundred dollars a year, until he gets sent to a lar

to be responsible for the future failure or success of Mr. Haley's minis

tting the polite "please," which Jane had had to suggest to her just once. What you've done for tha

y is enough clean water to put in the waterworks," she continued to explain. "Nell is a-going to take Dickie in her car, and Cousin Augusta is a-going to take me and Uncle

lie, immensely flattered by

e said, with such a happy glow on her face as the reformed one departed that I succeeded in suppre

rth's wheels go around, from the female inhabitants thereof. So I smiled to myself and buried my fa

ess than ten wouldn't satisfy me unless well scatte

athy in her voice, as she looked out of the window towards Widegables. "I wonder if I ought to make up my mind to stay

ragingly. I seemed to see the little green tendril that had unc

seen Elizabeth since her mother died and she was so much interested in the easy way of traveling these days, as Miss Mathers described

s down in the parsonage and of hi

"And then you will be here by yourself, so you can watch over Cou

eing too much alone," I answered

leave him so soon. I may not make up my mind to it," with which threat Sallie departed an

ear that interview between Sallie and the Dominie. I wager he'll never kn

come in with her, plan town sewerage. To-morrow night I knew the moon wouldn't rise until eleven o'clock, and how did I know anyway that Sallie's emancipation might not get start

hink Caroline and Lee were going too. Polk looked positively agonized with embarrassed sorrow at leaving me all alone,

ack doors, put out all the lights in the house and retired to the s

paler by the minute, while the stiff breeze that poured down from Old Harpeth began to be v

me and th

the fat pine under the logs in the hall. They had lain all ready for the torch for a whole year,

but my head was up and I was going to crackle pluckily along to my blaze, so I turned towards the door to go across the road and

Here's a telegram from Mr. Hall that says that the two roads have merged and will take the bluff route past Glendale, and give us the shops,-and wants to appoint me the General Attorney for the Southern Section. They want me to come on to New York by the first train. Can you marry me in

tly still and looked into them daringly, drinking my fill

ly that I doubt if he

st pressed my answer against his l

ully adjusted against his shoulder and he had my hand pressed to his cheek, when the awful

f what this awful complication was going to lose for the Five to

ressing both my hands against his br

to marry y

ay, as he took possession of me again and held me with a tender fierceness, which had more of suffering in it than passion. "I have always wanted you, Eve, since before you went away, but

er women, be sides making me miserable all summer," and crowded so close under his chin that he couldn't see m

nd that I withdraw coldly from his arms, where I had just got so warm and comfortable and at home; but with the first slight intimation of my intention, which was conveyed by a very feeble indeed loosening of my arms from around

proposition, we can just invite them all down here and in Glendale and Bolivar and Hillsboro and Providence, to say nothing of the countryside, we can plant them all cozily. I can delicately explain to their choices exactly how to let them manage circumstances like

or one minute I don't know that what Jane and I and all the most advanced women in the world are trying for is the right and just and the only way for men and women to come logically into the kind of heritage you and I have stumbled i

I were to take my hat and go back to the gate and come in again

s it would take to play out that farce, when I have been separated from him all the twenty-five years that str

from the doorway in Polk's delighted drawl as he and Jane stepped

in Jane's white serge ones that opened to receive me. And the seconds that I rested silently there

lmost sobbed with fear of what her disappoi

added to my apology as he stood

lk suddenly said, coming over and putting a h

wager stands as won by Evelina Shelby. She had properly prepared the ground and sowed the seed of justice and right thinking that I-I harvested to-night. I had the honor of offering marriage to Mr. Hayes just about fifteen minutes

him in a perfect panic of alarm.

ld answer such a question as Jane put to me, while driving a cranky car in waning moonlight. If you and James will just mercifully betake y

w

rney, and he had crooned his "Swing Low" over me and rocked me against his breast for a century of seconds, down on my old front gate, "

with both genero

dawn of a new day, what can men and women d