“I’m afraid,” laughed Rose Mary as she prepared to close up the wide window and leave everything in shipshape for the night.  “A woman oughtn’t to risk feeding a hungry man cold moonbeams instead of hot hoecake.  Besides, I have to see everybody safely tucked in before I can leave.  Aren’t they all a precious houseful of early-to-bed chickens?  The old Sweeties have forgotten there is such a thing as the moon and Stonie hasn’t—­found it out—­yet.”  And with a mischievous backward glance, Rose Mary led the way up the lilac path to the Briars on top of the hill just as the old bell sounded two wobbly notes, their uncertainty caused by the rivalry of the General and Tobe over the pulling of the ropes.

And it was quite two hours later that she and Everett made their way across the barn-lot over to the broad, moss-covered Tilting Rock that jutted out from a little hackberry-covered knoll at the far end of the pasture.

“Now look—­and smell in deep!” exclaimed Rose Mary excitedly as she pointed back to the Briars.

“Why—­why!” exclaimed Everett under his breath, “it’s enchantment!  It’s a dream—­am I awake?”

And indeed a very vision spread itself out before the wondering man.  The low roof and wide wings of the Briars, with the delicate traceries of vines over the walls and gables, shone a soft, old-brick pink in the glow of moonlight, and over and around it all gushed a very shower of shimmering white blossoms, surrounding the house like a mist around an early blooming rose.  And as he looked, wave on wave of fragrance beat against Everett’s face and poured over his head.

“What is it?” he demanded breathlessly, as if dizzy from a too deep drinking of the perfume.

“Don’t you know?  It’s the locust trees that have bloomed out since sunset!” exclaimed Rose Mary in as breathless a tone as his own.  “For a week I have been watching and hoping they would be out in the full moon.  They are so delicate that the least little cold wind sets them back days or destroys them altogether.  I wanted them so very much this year for you, and I was so afraid you would notice them before we got over here where you could get the full effect.  I promised you lilacs for being good, but this is just because—­because—­”

“Because what?” asked Everett quietly.

“Because I felt you would appreciate it,” answered Rose Mary, as she sank down on the stone that still held a trace of the warmth from the sun, and made room for Everett beside her with one of her ever-ready, gracious little gestures.  “And it’s lovely to have you here to look at it with me,” she added.  “So many times I have sat here alone with the miracle, and my heart has ached for the whole world to get the vision of it at least.  I’ve tried sending my love of it out in little locust prayers to folks over the Ridge.  Did you ever happen to get one any spring?”

“Last April I turned down a commission for a false test for the biggest squeeze-out copper people in the world, fifty thousand in it to me.  I thought it was moral courage, but I know now it was just on account of the locusts blooming in Harpeth Valley at Sweetbriar.  Do you get any connection?” he demanded lightly, if a bit unevenly.