permanently decided. His chats with Tilly
took place every evening, either on the veranda, in the yard, or in
strolls along the mountain roads. One warm evening they had seated
themselves on a log on a lonely road on a hillside. Below them in the
twilight loomed up the hamlet with its lights and slow, blue smoke from
the chimney-tops. In the distance a dog was barking and a farmer calling
to his hogs. A church-bell was clanging for prayer-meeting. They sat
close together. She had a fan, and, as the mosquitoes were troublesome,
he had taken the fan and, novice that he was, he was awkwardly beating
them away.

"Don't bother," she said. "You are tired after your day's work," and
with a pretty air of male management she took the fan and fanned his
flushed face. He was perspiring from the walk up the hill, and with her
own dainty handkerchief she wiped his broad, tanned brow. He had never
kissed her. He had hardly dared even to think of it, but he kissed her
now. He was afraid she would rise resentfully and start for home, but
she took it as a matter of course and allowed him to draw her head to
his shoulder. For half an hour, in sheer bliss, he was unable to speak,
and Tilly seemed to understand. When he recovered his voice it occurred
to him that he must now ask her to be his wife, but he found himself
unable to formulate the prodigious thing in words. However, he
accomplished it indirectly, for he began telling her about the cottage
Pete Carrol had left so neatly furnished, and which Cavanaugh wanted him
to rent. Tilly listened as eagerly as a petted child who knows its
privileges. She frankly asked about the furniture, the curtains, the
rugs, the dishes, and, as he held his cheek against hers, he told her
everything he could think of in regard to the place. Suddenly she
laughed out happily, teasingly.

"You haven't even asked me to marry you," she said, voluntarily kissing
him and then playfully stroking his lips with her soft, pliant fingers.
"You are very strange, John. I always know what you feel--what you
think--but you don't say them right out."

"I was afraid," he suddenly confessed. "I've been afraid all
along--afraid of something, I don't know what, but afraid you'd refuse
me--as--as you did Joel Eperson."

"Refuse you!" kissing him again, and nestling back into his arms. "How
could you have thought that?"

"I don't know--but _will_ you--_will_ you?" he asked. "Will you say it
to-night in plain words, Till