l. I
took her hand, and dragged her from the black shadow of the rock: crying
out that we must now go home. Then we went back to Tom Tot's cheerful
kitchen; and there I no longer feared hell, but could not forget, try as
I would, what Mary Tot had told me about love.

* * * * *

Skipper Tommy Lovejoy was preaching what the doctor called in his genial
way "The Gospel According to Tommy."

"Sure, now, Tom Tot," said he, "the Lard is a Skipper o' wonderful civil
disposition. 'Skipper Tommy,' says He t' me, 'an you only does the
best----'"

"You're too free with the name o' the Lard."

Skipper Tommy looked up in unfeigned surprise. "Oh, no, Tom," said he,
mildly, "I isn't. The Lard an' me is----"

"You're too free," Tom Tot persisted. "Leave Un be or you'll rue it."

"Oh, no, Tom," said the skipper. "The Lard an' me gets along wonderful
well together. We're _wonderful_ good friends. I isn't scared o' _He_!"

As we walked home, that night, the doctor told my sister and me that,
whatever the greater world might think of the sin at Wayfarer's Tickle,
whether innocuous or virulent, Jagger was beyond cavil flagrantly
corrupting our poor folk, who were simple-hearted and easy to persuade:
that he was, indeed, a nuisance which must be abated, come what would.

XXIII

The COURSE of TRUE LOVE

Symptoms of my dear sister's previous disorder now again alarmingly
developed--sighs and downcast glances, quick flushes, infinite
tenderness to us all, flashes of high spirits, wet lashes, tumultuously
beating heart; and there were long dreams in the twilight, wherein, when
she thought herself alone, her sweet face was at times transfigured into
some holy semblance. And perceiving these unhappy evidences, I was once
more disquieted; and I said that I must seek the doctor's aid, that she
might be cured of the perplexing malady: though, to be sure, as then and
there I impatiently observed, the doctor seemed himself in some strange
way to have contracted it, and was doubtless quite incapable of
prescribing.

My sister would not brook this interference. "I'm not sayin'," she
added, "that the doctor couldn't cure me, an he had a mind to; for,
Davy, dear," with an earnest wag of her little head, "'twould not be the
truth. I'm only sayin' that I'll not have un try it."

"Sure, why, Bessie?"

Her glance fell. "I'll not tell you why," said she.

"But I'm wantin' t' know."

She pursed her lips