I loved, I wouldn't mind anybody's knowing it, but something must be
wrong with Polk or me or the way I feel. What is it?"

For a moment I got so stiff all over that Nell raised her head from my
shoulder in surprise. Do all women feel about the Crag as I do?

"I don't know," I answered weakly.

And I don't know! Oh, Jane, your simple experiment proposition is about
to become compound quadratics.

Then I got a still further surprise.

"I wouldn't in the least mind telling Mr. James how I like him--if you
think it is all right," Nell mused, looking pensively at the first pale
star that was rising over Old Harpeth. "I would enjoy it, because I
have always adored him, and it would be so interesting to see what he'd
say."

"Nell," I said suddenly with determination, "do it! Tell any man you
like how much you like him--and see what happens."

"I feel as if--as if"--Nell faltered and I don't blame her; I wouldn't
have said as much to her--"I feel that to tell Mr. James I love _him_
would ease the pain, the--pain--that I feel about Polk. It would be so
interesting to tell a man a thing like that."

"Do it!" I gasped, and went foot in the class in romantics.

If any jungle explorer thinks he has mapped and charted a woman's heart