“The garden has missed Aunt Ann,” said Leila.  “Uncle Jim looks at it from the porch, says ‘How pretty!’ and expects to see roses on his table every day.  I do believe he considers a garden as merely a kind of flower-farm.”

“Aunt Ann’s garden interests her the way Westways does.  There are sick flowers and weeds like human weeds, and bugs and diseases that need a flower-doctor, and flowers that are morbid or ill-humoured.  That is not my wisdom, Leila, it is Mr. Rivers’s.”

“No, John, it isn’t at all like you.”

“Aunt Ann didn’t like it, and yet I think he meant it to be a compliment, for he really considers Aunt Ann a model of what a woman ought to be.”

“I know that pretty well,” said Leila.  “When I used to lose my temper over that horrid algebra, I was told to consider how Aunt Ann kept her temper no matter what happened, as if that had anything to do with algebra and equations.  If he had seen her when she talked to George Grey about Josiah, he would have known Aunt Ann better.  I was proud of her.”

“Aunt Ann angry!” said John.  “I should have liked to have seen that.  Poor Josiah!”

They talked of the unlucky runaway, and were presently among the familiar pine and spruce, far beyond the garden bounds.  “Do put up that veil,” said John, “and you have not the least excuse for your parasol.”

“Oh, if you like, John.  Tell me about West Point.  It was such a surprise.”

“I will when I am there, if I am able to pass the examinations.”

“You will—­you will.  Uncle Jim told me you would pass easily.”

“Indeed!  He never told me that.  I have my doubts.”

“And I have none,” she returned, smiling.  “Mr. Rivers dislikes it.  He wrote to me about it just before he left.  Do you know, he did really think that you ought to be a clergyman.  He said you were so serious-minded for—­for a boy.”

John laughed, “nice clergyman I’d have made.”  Did Leila too consider him a boy?  “Oh! here we are at the old cabin.  I never forget the first day we came here—­and the graves.  The older I grow, Leila, the more clearly I can see the fight and the rifle-flashes, and the rescue—­and the night—­I can feel their terror.”

“Oh, we were mere children, John; and I do suppose that it is a pretty well decorated tradition.”  He looked at her with surprise, as she added, “I used to believe it all, now it seems strange to me, John—­like a dream of childhood.  I think you really are a good deal of a boy yet.”

“No, I am not a boy.  I sometimes fancy I never was a boy—­I came here a child.”  And then, “I think you like to tease me, Leila,” and this was true, although she was not pleased to be told so.  “You think, Leila, that it teases me to be called a boy by your ladyship.  I think it is because you remember what a boy once said to you here—­right here.”

“What do you mean?” She knew very well what he meant, but quickly repenting of her feminine fib, said, “Oh, I do know, but I wanted to forget—­I wanted to pretend to forget, because you know what friends we have been, and it was really so foolish.”