simple and tender glances of the
two young persons encountered each other; and they both smiled.

"You know you are not very well," added Verty; "and I could'nt sleep
well if I did not know how you were, Redbud."

The girl thanked him with another smile, and said:

"I believe I am nearly well now; the cold I caught the other day has
entirely left me. I almost think I might take a stroll, if the sun was
not so low."

"It is half an hour high--that is, it will not get cool until then,"
Verty said.

"Do you think I would catch cold?" asked the girl, smiling.

"I don't know," Verty said.

"Well, I do not think I will, and you shall wrap me in your coat, if I
do," she said, laughing.

In ten minutes, Redbud and Verty were strolling through the grove, and
admiring the sunset.

"How pretty it is," she said, gazing with pensive pleasure on the
clouds; "and the old grove here is so still."

"Yes," Verty said, "I like the old grove very much. Do you see that
locust? It was just at the foot of it, that we found the hare's form,
when Dick mowed the grass. You recollect?"

"Oh, yes," Redbud replied; "and I remember what dear little creatures
they were--not bigger than an apple, and with such frightened eyes.
We put them back, you know, Verty--that is, I made you," she added,
laughing.

Verty laughed too.

"They were funny little creatures," he said; "and they would have
died--you know we never could have got the right things for them to
eat--yes! there, in the long grass! How Molly Cotton jumped away."

They walked on.

"Here, by the filbert bush, we used to bury the apples to get mellow,"
Verty said; "nice, yellow, soft things they were, when we dug them
up, with a smell of the earth about 'em! They were not like the June
apples we used to get in the garden, where they dropped among the
corn--their striped, red sides all covered with dust!"

"I liked the June apples the best," Redbud said, "but I think October
is finer than June."

"Oh, yes. Redbud, I am going to get some filberts--will you have
some?"

"If you please."

So Verty went to the bushes, and brought his hat full of them, and
cracked them on a stone--the sun lighting up his long, tangled curls,
and making brighter his bright smile.

Redbud stooped down, and gathered the kernels as they jumped from the
shell, laughing and happy.

They had returned to their childhood again--bright and tender
childhood, which dowers our after life with so many