the weather of this night, and he
will have me to reckon with. It's the sweetest weather I ever walked
in. I will write a glorious song in praise of showery gusts and bare
commons."

"Do," said Letty, careful not to say Tom this time, but unwilling to
revert to Mr. Helmer, "and mind you bring in the umbrella."

"That I will! See if I don't!" answered Tom.

"And make it real poetry too?" asked Letty, looking archly round the
stick of the umbrella.

"Thou shalt thyself be the lovely critic, fair maiden!" answered Tom.

And thus they were already on the footing of somewhere about a two
years' acquaintance--thanks to the smart of ill-usage in Letty's bosom,
the gayety in Tom's, the sudden wild weather, the quiet heath, the
gathering shades, and the umbrella! The wind blew cold, the air was
dank and chill, the west was a low gleam of wet yellow, and the rain
shot stinging in their faces; but Letty cared quite as little for it
all as Tom did, for her heart, growing warm with the comfort of the
friendly presence, felt like a banished soul that has found a world;
and a joy as of endless deliverance pervaded her being. And neither to
her nor to Tom must we deny our sympathy in the pleasure which, walking
over a bog, they drew from the flowers that mantled awful deeps; they
will not sink until they stop, and begin to build their house upon it.
Within that umbrella, hovered, and glided with them, an atmosphere of
bliss and peace and rose-odors. In the midst of storm and coming
darkness, it closed warm and genial around the pair. Tom meditated no
guile, and Letty had no deceit in her. Yet was Tom no true man, or
sweet Letty much of a woman. Neither of them was yet _of the truth._

At the other side of the heath, almost upon the path, stood a deserted
hut; door and window were gone, but the roof remained: just as they
neared it, the wind fell, and the rain began to come down in earnest.

"Let us go in here for a moment," said Tom, "and get our breath for a
new fight."

Letty said nothing, but Tom felt she was reluctant.

"Not a soul will pass to-night," he said. "We mustn't get wet to the
skin."

Letty felt, or fancied, refusal would be more unmaidenly than consent,
and allowed Tom to lead her in. And there, within those dismal walls,
the twilight sinking into a cheerless night of rain, encouraged by the
very dreariness and obscurity of the place, she told Tom the trouble of
mind their interview at the oak was causing h