lina, the Lovely!" he exclaimed in his big booming voice, as he took
me by both shoulders and shook me instead of shaking merely my hand.

"Richard the Royal!" I answered in our old _Quartier Latin_ form of
greeting. I didn't look right into his eyes as I always had, however,
and something sent a keen pain through the exchanged heart in my breast
at the thought that I might be obliged to hurt the dandy old dear.

But suddenly the sight of Nell's loveliness cheered me. She had had
Dick in that car with her ever since nine o'clock, almost three hours,
showing him the sights of that teeming heavy lush harvest countryside
around Bolivar and Glendale, all over which are low-roofed old country
houses which brood over families that cluster around the unit that one
man and a woman make in their commonwealth. Nell's eyes were sweet as
she looked at him. I'll wait and see if I need to worry over him. With
the fervor I felt I had a right to, I then avoided the issue of
Richard's eyes, put it up to God and Nell, and introduced him to Jane.

And while the three of them stood waiting for Nell to back up the Buick
and put her spark-plug in her pocket,--only Richard calmly took it and
put it in his,--the rest of the cars came up the hill and turned into
the edge of the golden-rod.

Aunt Augusta was in the first one with the Chairman of the Commission,
whose name even would have paralyzed anybody but Aunt Augusta; and
Mamie and Cousin Martha, Caroline and several more of the ladies made up
the rest of the Committee who had gone to escort the distinguished
guests to the rally.

The Crag was in the last car with a perfectly delicious old gray-haired
edition of Dickie, and I almost fell on both their necks at once. What
saved them was Polk appearing between us with three long mint-topped
glasses.

I'm glad old Dick immediately had his eyebrows well tangled in the mint
of his julep, for I got my own eyes farther down into Cousin James's
deep gray ones than I expected and it was hard to come up. I hadn't had
a plunge in them for three days and I went pretty deep.

"Eve!" he said softly, as he raised his glass and smiled across his
green tuft.

Yes, I know he knows that I know, there is an answer to that name when
he says it that way, but I'm not going to give it until I am ready and
the place is romantically secluded enough to suit me. He just dares me
when he says it to me before other people. That reminds me, the harvest
moon is f