uddy boot went trampling down the earth about their roots, I
wanted to stoop down and kiss it? So dear everything about you
was!) Not that evening at Rosewood, with the arbor fragrance
about us. (I think I shall always picture you with roses all
about you. Red roses the color of your lips!) No, it was not
then that it began--nor that dreadful hour when you fought with
me to save my life--nor the morning you sat your horse in the
box-rows in that yew-green habit that made your hair look like
molten copper. No, it began the first afternoon, when I sat in
my motor with your rose in my hand! It has never left me since,
by day or by night. And yet there are people in this age of
airships and honking highways and typewriters who think
love-at-first-sight is as out-of-date as our little
grandmothers' hoops rusting in the garret. Ah, sweetheart, I,
for one, know better!

"Suppose I had not come to Virginia--and known _you_! My heart
jumps when I think of it. It makes one believe in fate. Here at
the Court I found an old leaf-calendar--it sits at my elbow
now, just as I came on it. The date it shows is May 14th, and
its motto is: _Every man carries his fate upon a riband about
his neck_. I like that.

"That first Sunday at St. Andrew's, I thought of a day--may it
be soon!--when you and I might stand before that altar, with
your people (my people, too, now) around us, and I shall hear
you say: 'I, Shirley, take thee, John--' And to think it is
really to come true! Do you remember the text the minister
preached from? It was 'But all men perceive that they have
riches, and that their faces shine as the faces of angels.' I
think I shall go about henceforth with my face shining, so that
all men will see that _I_ have riches--your love for me, dear.

"I am so happy I can hardly see the words--or perhaps it is
that the sun has set. I am sending this over by Uncle
Jefferson. Send me back just a word by him, sweetheart, to say
I may come to you to-night. And add the three short words I am
so thirsty to hear over and over--one verb between two
pronouns--so that I can kiss them all at once!"

He raised his head, a little flushed and with eyes brilliant, lighted a
candle, sealed the letter with the ring he wore and despatched it.

Thereafter he sat looking into t