put out a hand on either side of her as she stood in the shade, and so
prisoned her against the pillar. She flushed at this, and caught at my
arm with both hands, which made me smile, for few men in that country
could have put away my arms from the stone until I liked. Then I bent
and kissed her fair, and took what revenge was due our girls for her
Philadelphia manners.

When she boxed my ears I kissed her once more. Had she not at that
smiled at me a little, I should have been a boor, I admit. As she
did--and as I in my innocence supposed all girls did--I presume I may be
called but a man as men go. Miss Grace grew very rosy for a Sheraton,
but her eyes were bright. So I threw my hat on the grass by the side of
the gate and bowed her to be seated. We sat and looked up the lane which
wound on to the big Sheraton house, and up the red road which led from
their farm over toward our lands, the John Cowles farm, which had been
three generations in our family as against four on the part of the
Sheratons' holdings; a fact which I think always ranked us in the
Sheraton soul a trifle lower than themselves.

We were neighbors, Miss Grace and I, and as I lazily looked out over the
red road unoccupied at the time by even the wobbling wheel of some
negro's cart, I said to her some word of our being neighbors, and of its
being no sin for neighbors to exchange the courtesy of a greeting when
they met upon such a morning. This seemed not to please her; indeed I
opine that the best way of a man with a maid is to make no manner of
speech whatever before or after any such incident as this.

"I was just wandering down the lane," she said, "to see if Jerry had
found my horse, Fanny."

"Old Jerry's a mile back up the road," said I, "fast asleep under the
hedge."

"The black rascal!"

"He is my friend," said I, smiling.

"You do indeed take me for some common person," said she; "as though I
had been looking for--"

"No, I take you only for the sweetest Sheraton that ever came to meet a
Cowles from the farm yonder." Which was coming rather close home, for
our families, though neighbors, had once had trouble over some such
meeting as this two generations back; though of that I do not now speak.

"Cannot a girl walk down her own carriage road of a morning, after
hollyhocks for the windows, without--"

"She cannot!" I answered. I would have put out an arm for further
mistreatment, but all at once I pulled up. What was I coming to, I