a laugh that covered a little happy sigh that rose from my heart at the
look in the kind eyes bent on mine.

I felt, Jane, you would have approved of that look! It was so human to
human.

He came over with me, and that was one jolly party in the old
dining-room. They all stayed until almost sunset, and almost everybody
in town dropped in during the afternoon to welcome me home, and ask me
where I was going to live. Jasper and Petunia hovering in the
background, the tea-tray out on the porch set with the silver and damask
all of them knew of old, and the appearance of having been installed
with the full approval of Cousin Martha and James and the rest of the
family, stopped the questions on their lips, and they spent the
afternoon much enlivened but slightly puzzled.

Time doesn't do much to people in a place like the Harpeth Valley, that
is out of the stream of modern progress; and most of my friends seem to
have just been sitting still, rocking their lives along in the greatest
ease and comfort.

Still, Mamie Hall has three more kiddies, which, added to the four she
had when I left, makes a slightly high, if charming, set of stair-steps.
Mamie also looks decidedly worn, though pathetically sweet. Ned was with
her, and as fresh as any one of the buds. Maternity often wilts women,
but paternity is apt to make men bloom with the importance of it. Ned
showed off the bunch as if he had produced them all, while Mamie only
smiled like an angel in the background.

A slight bit of temper rose in a flush to my cheeks, as I watched