Hillsboro. He's a host of steadiness in himself, and the way he ignores
all you women, who would run after him if he would let you, shows what
he is. He has my full confidence," and as she delivered herself of this
judgment of Dr. John, Mrs. Johnson drove in all the corks tight and
began to pound spice.

"He's not out of the widower-woods yet, Caroline," said Aunt Bettie with
her most speculative smile. "I have about decided on him for Ruth since
the judge has taken to following Molly about as bad as Billy Moore does.
But don't any of you say a word, for John's very timid, and I don't
believe, in spite of all these years, he's had a single notion yet. He
doesn't see a woman as anything but a patient at the end of a spoon, and
mighty kind and gentle he does the dosing of them, too. Just the other
day--dearie me, Jane, what has boiled over now?" And in the excitement
that ensued I escaped to the garden.

Yes, Aunt Bettie is right about Dr. John; he doesn't see a woman, and
there is no way to make him. What she had said about it made me realise
that he had always been like that, and I told myself that there was no
reason in the world why my heart should beat in my slippers on that
account. Still I don't see why Ruth Clinton should have her head
literally thrown against that stone wall, and I wish Aunt Bettie
wouldn't. It seemed like a desecration even to try to match-make him,
and it made me hot with indignation all over. I dug so fiercely at the
roots of my phlox with a trowel I had picked up that they groaned so
loud I could almost hear them. I felt as if I must operate on something.
And it was in this mood that Alfred's letter found me.

It had a surprise in it, and I sat back on the grass and read it with my
heart beating like a hammer. He was leaving Paris the day he had posted
it, and he was due to arrive in London almost as soon as it did, just
any hour now I calculated in a flash. And "from London immediately to
Hillsboro" he had written in words that fairly sung themselves off the
paper. I was frightened--so frightened that the letter shook in my
hands, and with only the thought of being sure that I might be alone for
a few minutes with it, I fled to the garret.

Surely no woman ever in all the world read such a letter as that, and no
wonder my breath almost failed me. It was a love-letter in which the
cold paper was turned into a heart that beat against mine, and I bowed
my head over it as I wetted it with te