like. He wants her bad, from all the signs
I can see."

"But--but isn't Louisa Helen a little young for--" began Rose Mary,
taking what seemed a reasonable line of consolation.

"No, she's not too young to marry," answered her mother with spirit.
"Louisa Helen is eighteen years old in May, and I was married to Mr.
Plunkett before my eighteenth birthday. He was twenty-one, and I
treated him with proper respect, too. I never said no such foolish
things as Louisa Helen says to that Nickols boy, even to Mr.
Crabtree, hisself."

"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 an