“It was here that you told me good-bye when you went off to school,” he said recklessly.

“Was it?” she asked.  “I was very miserable that day and you gave me no comfort.  You didn’t even come down to the road next morning to see me go by.”

“Yes, I know,” he admitted.

“I thought you were asleep, and I was angry.”

“No, I was not asleep.  I was at work.”

“But you might have come.”

“Yes, I might have come,” he repeated absently, and quickly corrected himself.  “No, I mean I couldn’t come, of course.  If you were to go away to-morrow, I couldn’t come.  Something would rise and prevent.  I have a presentiment that I shall never say good-bye to you.”

She dissented.  “I’ve a feeling that I shall say ‘God speed’ to you when you go off to become a great man.”

“A great man?  Do you mean a rich man?” he asked quickly.

“Oh, dear, yes,” she mocked; “a great, gouty gentleman, who owns a couple of railroads and wears an electric light in his shirt-front.”

His lips laughed, but his eyes were grave.

“And when I came back to you with such trophies,” he objected, “you would tell me that the railroads belonged to the people and that the electric light only served to illuminate my ugliness.”

“And I should take it to wear on my forehead,” she added.  “What prophetic insight!”

“But ‘going off’ does not always mean railroads and electric light,” he went on half seriously.  “Suppose I came back poor, but honest, as they say?”

Laughter rippled on her lips.  He watched the humorous tremor of her nostrils.

“Then I should probably kill the fatted chicken for you,” she said.

There was a touch of bitterness in his answer.  “Only in that case I should stay away.”  As he spoke he stopped to break off a drooping branch from a sweet-gum tree that grew near the road.

“You once called this your colour,” he said quietly as he fastened the leaves on her horse’s head.  “There is no tree that turns so clear and so fiery.”

Then, as she rode on with the branch waving like a banner before her, he laughed with a keen delight in the savage brilliance.

“You remind me of—­who is it?” he asked—­“’Clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners.’”

Her smile was warm upon him.

“But my banners fall before the wind,” she said as several loosened leaves fluttered to the road.  “So I am not terrible, after all.”  The glow of the gum-tree was in her face.  His eyes fell before it, and he did not speak.  The soft footfalls of the horse on the damp ground sounded distinctly.  Overhead the wind rustled among the trees.

As they emerged from the wood and passed the Burr farm they saw Amos leaning on his gate, looking moodily upon the morning.

“Good-morning, Mr. Burr!” said Eugenia with the pleasant condescension of the general in her manner.  “Fine weather, isn’t it?”