Then after housing the Bird family in the feed-room with their guest, all happily at scratch in the hay for the wheat and corn thrown to them by the Corn-tassels while Matthew and I went in to bid the paternal twins good-by, we all rode merrily and joltily down the long avenue under the old elms to the big gate at the square in Riverfield.  In front of the post-office-bank-grocery emporium we deposited the Corn-tassels, introduced Matthew to Aunt Mary and Uncle Silas, with the most cordial results on both sides, and then turned in the car out the Riverfield ribbon instead of in.

“Just a spin will do you good, sweet thing,” said Matthew, as I settled down close enough to his shoulder to talk and not interrupt the powerful engine.  “I want you to myself for a small moment away from your live stock, human and inhuman.”

“Oh, Matt, there is nobody just like you and you have made this day—­possible,” I said as I snuggled down into the soft cushions.

“Honestly, Ann, do you mean positively that you don’t want me—­now?” he asked me as he sent the car whirling into the sun setting over Old Harpeth.

“Not—­now,” I answered bravely, though I nestled a little closer to him.  He seemed so good and strong and—­certain.

“All right then, I’ll take the next best and I’ll come in to your farm circle as partner or competitor or any old thing that keeps me in your aura.  I’ll grow chickens with the Corn-tassels or—­here we turn back for I want to get out again over that bit of mountain-path that leads to your citadel before twilight.”

“Put me out at the gate, Matt.  I want to walk up,” I said, and held to it against his protest.  I finally made him see that I really was not equal to another “rocking” over the road, and I stood and watched him drive the huge car away from me down the Riverfield ribbon.

“I’m afraid I love him and just don’t know it,” I said to myself, as I stood at the big gate and watched him going away from me into life as I had known it since birth until twenty-four hours past.  And from that vision of my past I turned in the sunset light of the present and began to walk slowly up the long avenue into my future.  “I’ve never known anything but dancing and motoring and being happy, and how could that teach any woman what love is?” I queried as I stopped and picked up a small yellow flower out of a nest of green leaves that some sort of ancestral influence must have introduced to me as dandelion, for I had never really met one before.  I felt a pale reflection of the glow I had experienced when I took the two warm pearls in my hands in the morning.

Then suddenly something happened that thrilled me first with interest and then with—­I don’t know what to call it, but it was not fear.  A fierce little wind, that was earthy and sweet, but strong, ruffled across my path and up into the tops of the elms, and with a bit of fury tore down an old bird’s-nest and flung it at my feet.  It was soft and downy with bits of fur and hair and wool inside, but it was all rent in two.