face, which was pressed close to Laine's as he held her close to his
heart.

That night, when all the house was still and every one asleep,
Dorothea slipped out of bed and, kneeling down beside it, folded her
hands and began to pray.

"O Lord"--her voice was a high whisper--"please make my cousin
Claudia come to her senses and promise my uncle Winthrop that she
will marry him right away. She lives in Virginia. Her post-office
is Brooke Bank, and she's an awfully nice person, but father says
even You don't know why women do like they do sometimes, and of
course a man don't. Please make her love him so hard she'd just die
without him, and make her write him to come quick. Give her
plenteous sense from on high, and fill her with heavenly thankfulness
and make her my aunt for ever and ever. Amen."

She got up and scrambled into bed and closed her eyes tightly.
"French prayers aren't worth a cent when you want something and want
it quick," she said, half aloud. "And when you're in dead earnest
you have to get right down on your knees. I don't know what I'd do
if I couldn't talk in plain English to the Lord. I hope He will
answer, for if He don't I certainly couldn't say right off, 'Thy will
be done.' I'd say I thought my cousin Claudia had mighty little
sense."




XXII