that portion
over and over with brightest patience. So the voice approached the
residence of the Baxter family, singing what the shades of night gave
courage to sing--instead of whistle, as in the abashing sunlight.

Thus:

"My countree, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liber-tee, My countree, 'tis
of thee, Sweet land of liber-tee, My countree, 'tis of thee, Sweet land
of liber-tee, My countree, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liber-tee, My
countree, 'tis--"

Jane spoke unconsciously. "It's Freddie," she said.

William leaped to his feet; this was something he could NOT bear! He
made a bloodthirsty dash toward the gate, which the singer was just in
the act of passing.

"You GET OUT O' HERE!" William roared.

The song stopped. Freddie Banks fled like a rag on the wind.

... Now here is a strange matter.

The antique prophets prophesied successfully; they practised with some
ease that art since lost but partly rediscovered by M. Maeterlinck, who
proves to us that the future already exists, simultaneously with the
present. Well, if his proofs be true, then at this very moment when
William thought menacingly of Freddie Banks, the bright air of a happy
June evening--an evening ordinarily reckoned ten years, nine months and
twenty-one days in advance of this present sorrowful evening--the bright
air of that happy June evening, so far in the future, was actually
already trembling to a wedding-march played upon a church organ; and
this selfsame Freddie, with a white flower in his buttonhole, and in
every detail accoutred as a wedding usher, was an usher for this very
William who now (as we ordinarily count time) threatened his person.

But for more miracles:

As William turned again to resume his meditations upon the steps, his
incredulous eyes fell upon a performance amazingly beyond fantasy, and
without parallel as a means to make scorn of him. Not ten feet from the
porch--and in the white moonlight that made brilliant the path to the
gate--Miss Mary Randolph Kirsted was walking. She was walking with
insulting pomposity in her most pronounced semicircular manner.

"YOU GET OUT O' HERE!" she said, in a voice as deep and hoarse as she
could make it. "YOU GET OUT O' HERE!"

Her intention was as plain as the moon. She was presenting in her own
person a sketch of William, by this means expressing her opinion of him
and avenging Jane.

"YOU GET OUT O' HERE!" she croaked.

The shocking audacity took William's breath. H