“Oh, please don’t worry about Louisa Helen, Mrs. Plunkett.  She is just so lovely and young—­and happy.  You and I both know what it is to be like that.  Sometimes I feel as if she were just my own youngness that I had kept pressed in a book and I had found it when I wasn’t looking for it.”  And Rose Mary’s smile was so very lovely that even Mrs. Plunkett was dazzled to behold.

“Lands alive, Rose Mary, you carry your thirty years mighty easy, and that’s no mistake.  You put me in mind of that blush peony bush of yourn by the front gate.  When it blooms it makes all the other flowers look like they was too puny to shake out a petal.  And for sheep’s eyes, them glances Mr. Gid Newsome casts at you makes all of Bob Nickols’ look like foolish lamb squints.  And for what Mr. Mark does in the line of sheeps—­Now there they come, and I can see from Louisa Helen’s looks she have invited that rampage in to supper.  I’ll have to hurry on over and knock up a extra sally-lunn for him, I reckon.  Good-by ’til morning!” And Mrs. Plunkett hurried away to the preparation of supper for the suitor of her disapproval.

For a few moments longer Rose Mary let her eyes go roaming out over the valley that was lying in a quiet hush of twilight.

Lights had flashed up in the windows over the village and a night breeze was showering down a fall of apple-blow from the gnarled old tree that stood like a great bouquet beside the front steps of the Briars.  All the orchards along the Road were in bloom and a fragrance lay heavy over the pastures and mingled with the earth scent of the fields, newly upturned by the plowing for spring wheat.

“Is that a regiment you’ve got camping in the garden, Rose Mary?” asked Everett as he came up the front walk in the moonlight some two hours later and found Rose Mary seated on the top of the front steps, all alone, with a perfectly dark and sleep-quiet house behind her.

Rose Mary laughed and tossed a handful of the pink blow she had gathered over his shoulder.  “Did you have your supper at Bolivar?” she asked solicitously.  “I saved you some; want it?”

“Yes, I had a repast at the Citizens’, but I think I can manage yours an hour or two later,” answered Everett as he seated himself beside her and lighted a cigar, from which he began to puff rings out into the moonlight that sifted down on to them through the young leaves of the bloom-covered old tree.  “You weren’t afraid of frost such a night as this, were you?” he further inquired, as he took a deep breath of the soft, perfume-laden air.

“I’m not now, but a cool breeze blew up about sundown and made me afraid for my garden babies.  Now I’m sure they will all wilt under their covers, and you’ll have to help me take them all off before you go to bed.  Isn’t it strange how loving things make you afraid they will freeze or wilt or get wet or cold or hungry?” asked Rose Mary with such delightful ingenuousness that a warm little flush rose up over Everett’s collar.  “Loving just frightens itself, like children in the dark,” she added musingly.