other minute to go; and then
when he had got fairly out of the door, called him back to tell him that
there was something she had heard about him. And Moses of course came
back; wanted to know what it was; and couldn't be told, it was a secret;
and then he would be ordered off, and reminded that he promised to go
straight home; and then when he got a little farther off she called
after him a second time, to tell him that he would be very much
surprised if he knew how she found it out, etc., etc.,--till at last tea
being ready, there was no reason why he shouldn't have a cup. And so it
was sober moonrise before Moses found himself going home.

"Hang that girl!" he said to himself; "don't she know what she's about,
though?"

There our hero was mistaken. Sally never did know what she was
about,--had no plan or purpose more than a blackbird; and when Moses was
gone laughed to think how many times she had made him come back.

"Now, confound it all," said Moses, "I care more for our little Mara
than a dozen of her; and what have I been fooling all this time
for?--now Mara will think I don't love her."

And, in fact, our young gentleman rather set his heart on the sensation
he was going to make when he got home. It is flattering, after all, to
feel one's power over a susceptible nature; and Moses, remembering how
entirely and devotedly Mara had loved him all through childhood, never
doubted but he was the sole possessor of uncounted treasure in her
heart, which he could develop at his leisure and use as he pleased. He
did not calculate for one force which had grown up in the meanwhile
between them,--and that was the power of womanhood. He did not know the
intensity of that kind of pride, which is the very life of the female
nature, and which is most vivid and vigorous in the most timid and
retiring.

Our little Mara was tender, self-devoting, humble, and religious, but
she was woman after all to the tips of her fingers,--quick to feel
slights, and determined with the intensest determination, that no man
should wrest from her one of those few humble rights and privileges,
which Nature allows to woman. Something swelled and trembled in her when
she felt the confident pressure of that bold arm around her waist,--like
the instinct of a wild bird to fly. Something in the deep, manly voice,
the determined, self-confident air, aroused a vague feeling of defiance
and resistance in her which she could scarcely explain to herself.