thy
of my metal. His refusal of my cup of tea, for which he had announced
that he came, was his gauntlet and I accepted it as I turned with the
queer sugared rage in my heart and set the cup on the table.

And as I had planned, and the Jaguar directed, the evening came to pass.
While I slipped into some dancing fluff, the strains of the most
wonderful hymn that the Christian religion possesses floated across my
garden and into my window and again beat against my heart. The parson
was singing with the rest of them, but his voice seemed to lift theirs
and bear them aloft on the strong, wide wings that went soaring away
into the night, even up to the bright stars that gleamed beyond the tips
of the old graybeard poplars. A queer tight breath gripped my heart for
a second as his plea, "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide," beat
against it, then I laughed it away.

"It _is_ 'a potent agent for intoxication' when brewed by the Reverend
Mr. Goodloe, and here's where I run, both physically and mentally," I
said to myself as I ran down the steps and out to the two cars that
stood honking impatiently by the gate.

I don't think I ever enjoyed a dance more, and I am sure that my
pleasure was partly due to the wild spirits of the religiously released
who were having the first joy fling for six months.

"I'll not get enough until I wilt upon the floor and have to be carried
out," said Billy, as he held me closer and slid two steps to the right
and then back to get me out of the way of Hampton and Harriet Henderson,
who were dancing with regardless joy.

"Will you feel that way about church next Sunday?" I asked him, but my
demand made no apparent dent, for he danced on without answering.

At an hour after that of midnight the revelers came home and left me at
my gate, by request, to walk alone in the brilliant spring moonlight
through my garden to the wide door back of the white pillars. After they
had seen me safely started, they glided away and I stood on the steps
and watched Nell and Mark reclaim their family from a tall dark figure
that carried out two loads to the parental arms. Then the hush that
comes upon the world in the midnight hours fell over the Poplars and I
stood leaning against one of the tall pillars and reveled in it.

Goodloets is one of the tradition-grayed old towns that are rooted deep
in the Harpeth Valley since the days of the Colonies, and in it can be
found perhaps the purest Americanism on the A