He answered her at length as they rode homeward with more to think of than was pleasant.  At the avenue gate she said earnestly, “Don’t wait too long before telling Aunt Ann.”

“Upon my word, I am sorry,” returned the Squire, “for the unfortunate man who may become your husband.  If you undertake to offer advice at your tender years, what will you do when you are older?”

“My husband-that-is-to-be sends you his compliments,” laughed Leila, “and says—­I don’t know what he says, but it is exactly the right thing, Captain Penhallow.  But really, don’t wait, uncle.”

“You are quite right, my dear.”  Nevertheless he waited.  Decisiveness in affairs and in moments of peril he had, but where Ann was concerned he became easily unsure, and as McGregor said, “wabbled awful.”  This was to Leila.  “What gets the matter with men?  The finer they are, the braver—­the more can a woman bother their judgment.  He wires for a regimental command—­gets it; and, by George, throws away a fortune to get the privilege of firing a cannon at Mrs. Ann’s beloved Rebels.  He mustn’t make guns it seems—­he tries not to believe her hysterics at all affected by his tossing away this big contract.”

“Now, Doctor, you are in one of your cynical moods.  I hate you to talk this way about the finest gentleman I ever knew, or ever shall know.  You delight to tease me.”

“Yes—­you are so real.  No one could get hysterics out of you.  Now why do you suppose James Penhallow wants to plunge into this chaotic war?”

“Or your son, Tom?  Why do you get up of a winter night to ride miles to see some poor woman who will never pay you a penny?”

“Pure habit.”

“Nonsense.  You go—­and Uncle Jim goes—­because to go is duty.”

“Then I think duty is a woman—­that accounts for it, Leila.  I retire beaten.”

“You are very bad to-day—­but make Uncle Jim talk it all out to Aunt Ann.”

“He will, and soon.  He has been routed by a dozen excuses.  I told him at last that the mill business has leaked out and the village is saying things.  I told him it must not come to her except through him, and that he could not now use her health as an excuse for delay.  It is strange a man should be so timid.”

And still Penhallow lingered, finding more or less of reason in the delays created by the lawyers.  Meanwhile he had accepted the command of the 129th Pennsylvania infantry which was being drilled at Harrisburg, so that he was told there was no occasion for haste in assuming charge.  But at last he felt that he must no longer delay.

The sun was setting on an afternoon in July when Penhallow, seeing as she sat on the porch how the roses of the spring of health were blooming on his wife’s cheeks, said, “I want to talk to you alone, Ann.  Can you walk to the river?”

“Yes, I was there yesterday.”

The cat-birds, most delightful of the love-poets of summer, were singing in the hedges, and as they walked through the garden Penhallow said, “The rose crop is promising, Ann.”