It has been said that Barwood had come to the farm to-day with a definite purpose.  He drew up one of the comfortable chairs at hand, and sat down near to Nina.  They talked at first of ordinary things, the unusual heat, the news of the day, and what each had been doing since their last meeting.

The secluded prospect before them was very peaceful.  Barwood felt its soothing influence acting upon the perturbation of his spirit.

“I am improving my mind, you see,” said Nina, holding up to him one of Motley’s histories, which she had apparently been reading.  “I do not believe even you can find fault with this.”

“Am I in the habit of finding fault with anybody, Miss Nina?”

“Oh no, I don’t mean that exactly, but you know so much, you know, that you frighten one.”

“Thank you,” said Barwood with a grave smile, “you flatter me.”

“Why were you not at the Hoyts’ last Tuesday?” said she.

“I was not invited, and, strange to state, I am a little diffident about going under such circumstances.”

“Ah, you are! how singular!  But I wish you had been there, if it was only to see Betty Goodwin.  You used to know her.  It is such a short time ago that she was a little girl.  Now she is out of school and as important as anybody.  You should have seen the attention she had, and her perfect self-possession.  It makes me feel extremely antiquated.  Am I very much wrinkled?”

Barwood gazed with admiration at her animated face.  She was to him the personification of youth and beauty.  The notion of age and wrinkles in her regard was inconceivable.

“Why, of course,” said he; “Methuselah wasn’t a circumstance.”

She dismissed the subject with a little pout.

“I am so glad you have come early,” she resumed.  “I wish the others would imitate your example.”

“The others?  What others?”

“Mr. Hyson, the Hoyt boys, Mr. Brown, Fanny Davis, and the rest.  You did not suppose you were to do them alone, I hope.”

“Do what alone?  I don’t understand.”

“Why, the tableaux—­Evangeline.  Did you not get my message yesterday?”

“I got no message.  Am I to be implicated in tableaux?”

“Why, certainly.  You are to be Evangeline’s father.  They are for the benefit of the French wounded.  I sent Carter to tell you yesterday.  We are to arrange the preliminaries this evening.”

Barwood saw that if he would not postpone his purpose no time was to be lost.  The visitors might arrive at any moment.

Literature is full of the embarrassments of the marriage proposal.  To all who are not borne along by an impetuous impulse it is a trying ordeal.  Barwood was too self-conscious ever to be transported out of himself.

“I have something to say to you, Miss Nina,” he began, “which I have come from town expressly to say.  It is of the greatest moment to me.”