defiance I was fairly flinging at him in either my voice
or manner.

Paris and London and New York are nice safe places to live in, in
comparison with Glendale, Tennessee, in some respects. I wonder why I
hadn't been more scared than I was last night, as the train whirled me
down into proximity to Polk Hayes. But then I had had four years of
forgetting him stored up as a bulwark.

"But what _are_ you going to do, Evelina?" Sallie again began to
question, with positive alarm in her voice, and I saw that it was time
for me to produce some sort of a protector then and there--or
capitulate.

And I record the fact that I wanted to go home with Sallie and Cousin
Martha and the babies and--and live under the roof of the Mossback
forever. All that citizenship-feeling I had got poured into me from Jane
and had tried on Dickie, good old Dickie, had spilled out of me at the
first encounter with Polk.

There is a great big hunt going on in this world, and women are the ones
only a short lap ahead. Can we turn and make good the fight--or won't
we be torn to death? It has come to this it seems: women must either be
weak, and cling so close to man that she can't be struck, keep entirely
out of the range of his fists and arms,--or develop biceps equal to his.
Jane ought to have had me in training longer, for I'm discovering that
I'm weak--of biceps.

"Are you coming--are you coming to live with us, Evelina? Are you
coming? Answer!" questioned the small Henrietta, as she stood
commandingly in front of me.

"Please, Evelina," came in a coax from Sallie, while the Kit crawled
over and caught at my skirt as Cousin Martha raised her eyes to mine,
with a gentle echo of the combined wooings.

Then suddenly into Polk's eyes flamed still another demand, that
something told me I would have to answer later. I had capitulated and
closed this book forever when the deliverance came.

Jasper, a little older, but as black and pompous as ever, stood in the
doorway, and a portly figure, with yellow, shining face, on the step
behind him.

"Why, Uncle Jasper, how did you know I was here?" I exclaimed, as I
fairly ran to hold out my hand to him.

"Mas' James sont me word last night, and I woulder been here by
daybreak, Missie, 'cept I had to hunt dis yere suitable woman to bring
along with me. Make your 'beesence to Miss Evelina, Lucy Petunia," he
commanded.

"You needn't to bother to show her anything, child," he continued
calmly, "I'll l