Part 21

He paced back and forth moodily, while Joe watched him in silence. “Well,” he said, at length, “I reckon I'll be movin' along. I just thought I'd tell yer.”

There was no answer, and Joe slammed the gate in disgust. “I wonder what's the matter,” thought Winfield. “'T isn't a letter, for to-day's mail hasn't come and she was all right last night. Perhaps she isn't ill--she said she cried when she was angry. Great Heavens! I hope she isn't angry at me!

“She was awfully sweet to me just before I left her,” he continued, mentally, “so I'm not to blame. I wonder if she's angry at herself because she offered to read the papers to me?”

All unknowingly he had arrived at the cause of Miss Thorne's unhappiness. During a wakeful, miserable night, she had wished a thousand times that she might take back those few impulsive words.

“That must be it,” he thought, and then his face grew tender. “Bless her sweet heart,” he muttered, apropos of nothing, “I'm not going to make her unhappy. It's only her generous impulse, and I won't let her think it's any more.”

The little maiden of his dreams was but a faint image just then, as he sat down to plan a course of action which would assuage Miss Thorne's tears. A grey squirrel appeared on the gate post, and sat there, calmly, cracking a nut.

He watched the little creature, absently, and then strolled toward the gate. The squirrel seemed tame and did not move until he was almost near enough to touch it, and then it scampered only a little way.

“I'll catch it,” Winfield said to himself, “and take it up to Miss Thorne. Perhaps she'll be pleased.”

It was simple enough, apparently, for the desired gift was always close at hand. He followed it across the hill, and bent a score of times to pick it up, but it was a guileful squirrel and escaped with great regularity.

Suddenly, with a flaunt of its bushy tail and a daring, backward glance, it scampered under the gate into Miss Ainslie's garden and Winfield laughed aloud. He had not known he was so near the other house and was about to retreat when something stopped him.

Miss Ainslie stood in the path just behind the gate, with her face ghastly white and her eyes wide with terror, trembling like a leaf. There was a troubled silence, then she said, thickly, “Go!”

“I beg your pardon,” he answered, hurriedly, “I did not mean to frighten you.”

“Go!” she said again, her lips scarcely moving, “Go!”

“Now what in the mischief have I done;” he thought, as he crept away, feeling like a thief. “I understood that this was a quiet place and yet the strenuous life seems to have struck the village in good earnest.

“What am I, that I should scare the aged and make the young weep? I've always been considered harmless, till now. That must be Miss Thorne's friend, whom I met so unfortunately just now. She's crazy, surely, or she wouldn't have been afraid of me. Poor thing, perhaps I startled her.”

He remembered that she had carried a basket and worn a pair of gardening gloves. Even though her face was so changed, for an instant he had seen its beauty--the deep violet eyes, fair skin, and regular features, surmounted by that wonderful crown of silvered hair.

Conflicting emotions swayed him as he wended his way to the top of the hill, with the morning paper in his pocket as an excuse, if he should need one. When he approached the gate, he was seized by a swift and unexplainable fear, and would have turned back, but Miss Hathaway's door was opened.

Then the little maiden of his dreams vanished, waving her hand in token of eternal farewell, for as Ruth came down the path between the white and purple plumes of lilac, with a smile of welcome upon her lips, he knew that, in all the world, there was nothing half so fair.

VIII. Summer Days

The rumble of voices which came from the kitchen was not disturbing, but when the rural lovers began to sit on the piazza, directly under Ruth's window, she felt called upon to remonstrate.

“Hepsey,” she asked, one morning, “why don't you and Joe sit under the trees at the side of the house? You can take your chairs out there.”

“Miss Hathaway allerss let us set on the piazzer,” returned Hepsey, unmoved.

“Miss Hathaway probably sleeps more soundly than I do. You don't want me to hear everything you say, do you?”

Hepsey shrugged her buxom shoulders. “You can if you like, mum.”

“But I don't like,” snapped Ruth. “It annoys me.”

There was an interval of silence, then Hepsey spoke again, of her own accord. “If Joe and me was to set anywheres but in front, he might see the light.”

“Well, what of it?”

“Miss Hathaway, she don't want it talked of, and men folks never can keep secrets,” Hepsey suggested.