rosperity? Since their first meeting they had
always greeted each other like old friends, but Nora grew more and more
willing to talk with any of her breathless customers who hurried up the
steep bank from the trains than with him. She would never take any pay
for her wares from him, and for a week he had stopped coming himself
and sent by a friend his money for the cakes; but one day poor Johnny's
heart could not resist the temptation of going with the rest, and Nora
had given him a happy look, straightforward and significant. There was
no time for a word, but she picked out a crusty bun, and he took it and
ran back without offering to pay. It was the best bun that a man ever
ate. Nora was two months out now, and he had never walked with her an
evening yet.

The shadows were thick under a long row of willows; there was a new
moon, and a faint glow in the west still lit the sky. Johnny walked on
the grassy roadside with his ears keen to hear the noise of a betraying
pebble under Nora's light foot. Presently his heart beat loud and all
out of time as a young voice began to sing a little way beyond.

Nora was walking slowly away, but Johnny stopped still to listen. She
was singing "A Blacksmith Courted Me," one of the quaintest and
sweetest of the old-country songs, as she strolled along in the
soft-aired summer night. By the time she came to "My love 's gone
along the fields," Johnny hurried on to overtake her; he could hear the
other verses some other time,--the bird was even sweeter than the voice.

Nora was startled for a moment, and stopped singing, as if she were
truly a bird in a bush, but she did not flutter away. "Is it yourself,
Mister Johnny?" she asked soberly, as if the frank affection of the
song had not been assumed.

"It's meself," answered Johnny, with equal discretion. "I come out for
a mout'ful of air; it's very hot inside in the town. Days off are well
enough in winter, but in summer you get a fine air on the train. 'T
was well we both took the same direction. How is the business? All
the b'ys are saying they'd be lost without it; sure there ain't a
stomach of them but wants its bun, and they cried the length of the
Road that day the thunder spoiled the baking."

"Take this," said Nora, as if she spoke to a child; "there's a fine
crust of sugar on the top. 'T is one I brought out for me little
supper, but I 'm so pleased wit' bein' rich that I 've no need at all
for 'ating. An' I