elope with me and changed your mind."

"When I frightened you so. Oh, Judith."

"You didn't--frighten me," said a very small voice indeed. "You----"

"What, dear?"

"Made me want you--want to go away with you. I never felt like that
before, all waked up and different and--happy. Oh, you didn't frighten
me. I wasn't angry because you tried to take me away. It was because you
brought me back."

"Don't you know why I brought you back?"

"No."

"Why, because I loved you. I didn't love you till then, not really; not
till that minute in the carriage. I know just what minute. When you let
me kiss you, and didn't mind any more. Then I knew about--love. I never
knew before, but I'll never forget again. It isn't just wanting people,
it's taking care of them, and not hurting them. Waiting till you can
have things--right. So I wanted to have you right and be fit for you,
and after that night I went to work and I wouldn't be stopped, not by
anything in this town or the world. Oh, Judith, why don't you speak to
me? It isn't much use to talk. You don't understand."

"I--do."

"You're crying!"

She was crying, and she did understand. Before this unexpected,
beautiful proof of it, the boy was reverent and half ashamed, as if a
woman's tears were a sacred miracle invented for him. He held her hand
timidly and pressed it. Presently she drew it away, and suddenly she was
not crying, but laughing, a low, full-throated laugh as wonderful to
him as her tears.

"I told you, you did it all," she said softly. "Well, you didn't. Neil,
there's what did it all. Because, if you only go on believing in things
and being sweet and true and not afraid, and--wishing, then everything
will come right. It's got to, just because you want it to. So there's
what did it all and made us so happy, you and me. I love it. Love it,
Neil."

Neil looked where Judith was looking. Above the horse-chestnut tree, so
filmy and faint that the stars looked brighter than ever, so pale that
it was not akin to the stars, but to the dark beyond, where adventures
were, so friendly and sweet that it could make the wish in your heart
come true, hung a new-risen silvery crescent of light.

"But it's only the moon," Neil said.

"It's--the wishing moon," said Judith.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Note:

Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected
without note. Some illustrations have been relocated for
bett