if it all kills me it won't be my fault if anybody has to lie in
saying that I was "beautiful in death".

But now that more than a month has passed, I really don't mind it so
much. I feel so good and strong and prancy all the time that I can't
keep from bubbling. I have to smile at myself.

Then another thing that helps is Billy and his ball. I never could
really play with him before, but now I can't help it. But an awful thing
happened about that yesterday. We were in the garden playing over by the
lilac bushes and Billy always beats me because when he runs to base he
throws himself down and slides along on the grass on his little stomach
as he sees the real players do over at the ball grounds. Then all of a
sudden, before I knew it, I just did the same thing, and we slid to the
flower pot we use as a base together, each on his own stomach. And what
did Billy do but begin right there on the grass the kind of a tussle we
always have in the big rocking-chair on the porch! Over and over we
rolled, Billy chuckling and squealing while I laughed myself all out of
breath. I'm glad I always would wear delicious petticoats, for there,
looking right over my front fence, I discovered Judge Benton Wade. I
wish I could write down how I felt, for I never had that sensation
before and I don't believe I'll ever have it again.

I have always thought that Judge Wade was really the most wonderful man
in Hillsboro, not because he is a judge so young in life that there is
only a white sprinkle in his lovely black hair that grows back off his
head like Napoleon's and Charles Wesley's, but because of his smile,
which you wait for so long that you glow all over when you get it. I
have seen him do it once or twice at his mother when he seats her in
their pew at church and once at little Mamie Johnson when she gave him a
flower through their fence as he passed by one day last week, but I
never thought I should have one all to myself. But there it was, a most
beautiful one, long and slow and distinctly mine--at least I didn't
think much of it was for Billie. I sat up and blushed as red all over as
I do when I first hit that tub of cold water.

[Illustration: I sat up and blushed red all over]

"I hope you'll forgive an intruder, Mrs. Carter, but how could a mortal
resist a peep into the garden of the gods if he spied the queen and her
faun at play?" he said in a voice as wonderful as the smile. By that
time I had reefed in my ruffles around