“You’ll excuse me, my dear,” said Mrs. Jenney, “but the supper’s on the stove, and I have to run out now and then.”

Mr. Jenney was entertaining.  He had the shrewd, humorous outlook upon life characteristic of the best type of New England farmer, and Victoria got along with him famously.  His comments upon his neighbours were kindly but incisive, except when the question of spirituous liquors occurred to him.  Austen Vane he thought the world of, and dwelt upon this subject a little longer than Victoria, under the circumstances, would have wished.

“He comes out here just like it was home,” said Mr. Jenney, “and helps with the horses and cows the same as if he wasn’t gettin’ to be one of the greatest lawyers in the State.”

“O dear, Mr. Jenney,” said Victoria, glancing out of the window, “I’ll really have to go home.  I’m sure it won’t stop raining for hours.  But I shall be perfectly dry in my rain-coat,—­no matter how much you may despise it.”

“You’re not a-going to do anything of the kind,” cried Mrs. Jenney from the doorway.  “Supper’s all ready, and you’re going to walk right in.”

“Oh, I really have to go,” Victoria exclaimed.

“Now I know it ain’t as grand as you’d get at home,” said Mr. Jenney.  “It ain’t what we’d give you, Miss Victoria,—­that’s only simple home fare,—­it’s what you’d give us.  It’s the honour of having you,” he added,—­and Victoria thought that no courtier could have worded an invitation better.  She would not be missed at Fairview.  Her mother was inaccessible at this hour, and the servants would think of her as dining at Leith.  The picture of the great, lonely house, of the ceremonious dinner which awaited her single presence, gave her an irresistible longing to sit down with these simple, kindly souls.  Austen was the only obstacle.  He, too, had changed his clothes, and now appeared, smiling at her behind Mrs. Jenney.  The look of prospective disappointment in the good woman’s face decided Victoria.

“I’ll stay, with pleasure,” she said.

Mr. Jenney pronounced grace.  Victoria sat across the table from Austen, and several times the consciousness of his grave look upon her as she talked heightened the colour in her cheek.  He said but little during the meal.  Victoria heard how well Mrs. Jenney’s oldest son was doing in Springfield, and how the unmarried daughter was teaching, now, in the West.  Asked about Europe, that land of perpetual mystery to the native American, the girl spoke so simply and vividly of some of the wonders she had seen that she held the older people entranced long after the meal was finished.  But at length she observed, with a start, the gathering darkness.  In the momentary happiness of this experience, she had been forgetful.

“I will drive home with you, if you’ll allow me,” said Austen.

“Oh, no, I really don’t need an escort, Mr. Vane.  I’m so used to driving about at night, I never think of it,” she answered.