oon was rising, and all at once all the girl's sweet light
of youthful romance appeared again above her mental horizon. She felt
that it would be almost heaven to walk with George Ramsey in that
delicious moonlight, in the clear, frosty air, and take little Jessy
Ramsey her gifts. Maria was of an almost abnormal emotional nature,
although there was little that was material about the emotion. She
dreamed of that walk as she might have dreamed of a walk with a fairy
prince through fairy-land, and her dream was as innocent, but it
unnerved her. She said again, in a tremulous voice, that she was very
much obliged, and murmured something again about her uncle Henry; and
George Ramsey replied, with a certain sober dignity, that he should
have been very happy.

Soon after that the car stopped to let off some passengers, and
George moved to a vacant seat in front. He did not turn around again.
Maria looked at his square shoulders and again gazed past her aunt at
the full orb of the moon rising with crystalline splendor in the pale
amber of the east. There was a clear gold sunset which sent its
reflection over the whole sky.

Presently, Eunice spoke in her little, deprecating voice, which had a
slight squeak.

"Did you speak to your uncle Henry about going with you this
evening?" she asked.

"No, I didn't," admitted Maria, reddening, "but I knew he would be
willing."

"I suppose he will be," said Eunice. "But he does get home awful
tuckered out Saturday nights, and he always takes his bath Saturday
nights, too."

Eunice looked out of the window with a slight frown. She adored her
husband, and the thought of that long walk for him on his weary
Saturday evening, and the possible foregoing of his bath, troubled
her.

"I don't believe George Ramsey liked it," she whispered, after a
little.

"I can't help it if he didn't," replied Maria. "I can't go with him,
Aunt Eunice."

As they jolted along, Maria made up her mind that she would not ask
her uncle to go with her at all; that she would slip out unknown to
Aunt Maria and ask the girl who lived in the house on the other side,
Lily Merrill, to go with her. She thought that two girls need not be
afraid, and she could start early.

As she parted from her aunt Eunice at the door of the house, after
they had left the car (Eunice's door was on the side where the
Ramseys lived, and Maria's on the Merrill side), she told her of her
resolution.

"Don't say anything to Uncle