At supper the Governor's first toast, after that to the town itself,
was to father and his distinctions. Then Mr. Jeffries toasted Nickols
and me. He called Nickols the "American Wizard of Habitations," and,
amid cheering and clapping hands, announced his intention to have
Nickols build the American town on the Hudson. He called me the "Heart
of the Achievement," and father's pride as he looked down the long table
at Nickols and me was very wonderful and beautiful; and as great a pride
rose in my heart as I saw him lift his glass of water to pledge me,
leaving the bubbles breaking in his champagne.
It was very near dawn when we all motored home and it was upon the verge
of the crack of day by the time Dabney and Nickols had got the Governor
and Mr. Jeffries and the other guests settled under the wide roof of the
Poplars, which had never hovered a more distinguished or brilliant house
party.
For a few quiet minutes after they had all gone to their rooms Nickols
and I stood alone on the front porch in the cool darkness with its hint
of the dawn, while old Dabney shut up the back part of the house.
"The school festival will be over to-morrow, sweetheart, and the next
day they will all be gone. The photographers are all through with the
photographing and to-morrow night all the extra workmen go back to the
city. There'll be three whole quiet days for you to get ready to give me
that kiss, which I won't take when you are as tired as you are now,"
said Nickols, as he put a limp arm around me and leaned against the tall
door post.
"To-morrow the old makes way for the new. Goodloets is dead! Long live
Goodloets!" I answered, as I in turn leaned against Nickols' jaded arm
for only a second before we preceded Dabney up the stairs to our rooms.
In my room I went immediately to the window and opened wide the heavy
shutters. I found myself looking down on Goodloets, which lay below the
darkness of the Poplars like a long glowworm, brilliant with the lights
from the homes of the revelers who were going to bed with a sense of
perfect security. Still farther down the hill the lights from the
Settlement glowed with scarcely less brilliancy and I felt sure that the
Last Chance was still harboring a last fling of joy.
Suddenly over my spirit came a deep wave of depression that amounted to
a great fear and then as I stood trembling in the darkness, a broad ray
of morning light shot up over Paradise Ridge and spread rapidly into a
crimson glow that was reflected against a black cloud hanging low over
the head of Old Harpeth. A flash of lightning darted from the cloud and
spread its gold fire through the crimson of the coming day, and then the
sullen-pointed cloud sank rapidly below Paradise Ridge, over which it
had risen, as if reconnoitering. Positively shuddering, I knelt against
the window seat and watched the day come with a hitherto unknown terror.
Then as I watched the dawn begin to drive away the sullen clouds a rich
voice began to sing out beyond the old poplars as a window of the gray
chapel was thrown open: "Arise, my soul, arise,
Shake off thy guilty fears;
... ... ... ...
Before the throne my Surety stands
My name is written on His hands."