Page:The leopard's spots - a romance of the white man's burden-1865-1900 (IA leopardsspotsrom00dixo).pdf/359

 his nerves, broadened his sympathies, and it will make him a man."

A look of longing came over her face. "I don't want him to be too strong without me," she faltered.

"Never fear. He's so despondent at times I have to try to laugh him out of countenance."

She smiled and pressed his hand for answer as he rose to go.

"How do you like these Yankees, Miss Sallie?"

"I've been surprised and charmed beyond measure with everything I've seen!"

"You don't say so! How?"

"Well, I thought they were cold-blooded and inhospitable. I never made a more foolish mistake. I have never been more at home, or been treated more graciously in the South. To tell you the truth, they seem like our most cultured people at home, warm-hearted, cordial, sensible and neighbourly. Mama is so pleased she's trying to claim kin with the Puritans, through her Scotch Covenanter ancestry."

"After all, I believe you are right. I never preached in my life to so sensitive an audience. There's an atmosphere of solid comfort, good sense, and intelligence that holds me in a spell here. This is the place in which I've dreamed I'd like to live and work."

"Then you will accept, Doctor?"

"Now listen to you, child! Don't you think I've a heart too? My brain and body longs for such a home, but my heart's down South with mine own people who love and need me."

The committee did their best to bring the Preacher to a favourable decision at once, but he smiled a firm refusal. They refused to report it to the church, and sent Deacon Crane, now a venerable man of seventy-six, the warmest admirer of the Preacher among them all to