gian's cottage, in the western part of
town, and he stood at the door listening before he rang the bell. A
little girl came out with a tin pail, the gripman's dinner. As she
opened the door he saw Gunhild. She dropped a boy's jacket, which she
had evidently been mending, and came bounding to meet him, with her
welcome bursting out in a laugh. Her hands were warm, and her eyes full
of happiness. There was no put-on and no disguises in their meeting. It
was two destinies touching again, destinies that were to become as one.
She led him into the neat little parlor, gave him a rocking-chair, and
talked of her gladness at his coming, standing for a moment in front of
a glass to put back into place a wayward wisp of hair. Their meeting had
not been cool. She drew up a chair beside him and they talked about the
country, of the haunted house, and the tree that had hoisted a vine
like an umbrella. He told her that he had come through the fields to the
station, and had stood in the ditch among the wild sunflowers. He had
plucked some for her, but they were dead and had fallen to pieces.

They went out into the park, not far away, and sat amid the scenes of a
changing season, the leaves falling about them. It was an odd courtship,
an indefinite engagement. There was no attempt at sentiment, no time
when either one felt that something tender must be said, but between
them there was a wholesome understanding of the heart. They were not
living a love story. She was not clothed in the glamour-raiment of
love's ethereal fancy, not sigh-fanned by the breath of reverential
melancholy. Her hand did not feel like the velvet paw of a kitten; it
was a hand that had toiled; and though easier days may come, the mark of
labor can never be erased from the palm.

She left him on the rustic seat, and hastened across the sward to pluck
a bloom that had been sheltered from the early frost, and he looked at
her, a gladness tingling in his nerves. How trim she was in her dark
gown! She looked back at him, pointed at a policeman standing off among
the trees, and imitated the walk of a sneak-thief. She returned
laughing, and pinning the flower on his coat, stood to gaze upon him as
if he were in bloom, and said in an accent that always reminded him of a
banjo's lower tones, "See, the frost has not killed you." Simple,
playful, loving, strong, were the words to express an estimate of
her--the healthy refinement of an honest heart, and modest because she