reature into
the youth's way, not reflecting that only one result--on his side, at
least--could follow.

They kept no watch upon the pair, and knew not of the many meetings,
accidental, apparently, even to themselves, that took place between the
innocent youth and girl. It needs no reading of light books to make a
successful lover, nor grace, nor elegant carriage; and Nature points the
way to the most modest and untrained wooer. So, without a word having
been spoken on the subject, nor any caress exchanged, except, perhaps,
an occasional momentarily clasped hand, or the necessary and proper
contact, when Hannah rode, sometimes, behind Jason on the pillion (one
arm around him to keep her in her seat), they became lovers, and none
the less so that they had given no verbal or labial utterance to their
loves.

And the summer flew by on wings of the fleetest, and Jason's
twenty-first birth-day approached.

It fell this year upon a Sunday. The family had 'been to meeting' all
the day as usual, no reference being made to the fact that the youth was
now 'free.' (His father had said to him, as they milked the cows on
Saturday night, 'We will put by your "Freedom Day" till Monday.') But
all day Jason had walked, and thought, and eaten, and drunk, not to the
glory of the Lord, as his father and mother piously believed _they_ did,
but to the glory of himself--no longer a child, but a man!

It lacked a full half hour to sunset, and there was no cooler resting
place that warm summer afternoon than beneath the shade of a
thick-leaved grape-vine that overspread a stunted pear tree some little
distance in the rear of the house. Hannah, with her natural love for
pleasant things and places, had induced Jason, some time before, to make
a seat for her in this charming spot. It was quite out of sight from the
house, and the little bower the vine made could be entered only from one
side. In this bower Hannah sat this sunny afternoon, wondering if it
would change Jason very much to be a boy no longer, and devoutly praying
in the depths of her pure little heart that it would not.

She sat, half sadly, and not very distinctly, dreaming over this
problem, when the shade was deepened, and, looking up, she was aware
that Jason stood at the entrance to the arbor. Her heart stopped beating
for half a moment, and she felt quite faint and sick. Then she said,
with a smile, half sad, half jocose, 'You are a _man_ now, Jason, are
you not?'

There