, that this would not be the
case, as they had started to Principal Trenholme's picnic.

He asked, with great curiosity, why they were not there, and they
explained as well as they could, adding, in a little burst of
semi-confidence, "It's rather more fun to talk to you across a fence
than sit up and be grand in company."

He smiled at them good-naturedly.

"Say," said he, "if your mother let you stay out, 'twas because you were
going to be at the Trenholme party. You're not getting benefit of clergy
here, you know."

"We're going;"--loftily--"we're only waiting to be sure there's no more
drunken people."

"I was just about to remark that I'd do myself the pleasure of escorting
you."

At this they whispered together. Then, aloud--"Thank you very much, but
we're not afraid; we're often out as late in papa's fields. We're
afraid mamma wouldn't like it if you came with us."

"Wouldn't she now?" said Harkness. "Why not? Is she stuck up?"

Blue felt that a certain romance was involved in acknowledging her
parents' antipathy and her own regret.

"Rather," she faltered. "Papa and mamma are rather proud, I'm afraid."
It was a bold flight of speech; it quite took Red's breath away. "And
so,"--Blue sighed as she went on--"I'm afraid we mustn't talk to you any
more; we're very sorry. We--I'm sure--we think you are very nice."

Her feeling tone drew from him a perfectly sincere reply, "So I am; I'm
really a very nice young man. My mother brought me up real well." He
added benevolently, "If you're scared of the road, come right through my
place here, and I'll set you on your own farm double quick."

It was with pleasurable fear that the girls got through the fence with
his help. They whispered to each other their self-excuses, saying that
mamma would like them to be in their own fields as quickly as possible.

The moonlight was now gloriously bright. The shrubs of the old garden,
in full verdure, were mysteriously beautiful in the light. The old house
could be clearly seen. Harkness led them across a narrow open space in
front of it, that had once been a gravel drive, but was now almost green
with weeds and grasses. On the other side the bushes grew, as it seemed,
in great heaps, with here and there an opening, moonlit, mysterious. As
they passed quickly before the house, the girls involuntarily shied like
young horses to the further side of Harkness, their eyes glancing
eagerly for signs of the old man. In a minute th