iver wind, almost imperceptible in its
rustling and a little chill. Joe felt a quiver of happiness.

"You're the noisiest man I ever knew," interrupted Myrtle plaintively.
"Ooh! This place gives me the creeps."

He could feel the warmth of her and he laughed. "Swampy here a bit
from the creek bottom. Up ahead it is higher and better. That crowd
all come to see you? You shouldn't have run them away."

"Oh, it was time they were going. They knew I wanted to see you." He
could almost feel her eyes and felt that she was making a play for
him. It was a new and pleasing experience.

"So you really did, did you? I'm flattered."

There was a coaxing, cloying note in her voice when she spoke
directly, that in some way coincided with the breath of the night and
the feel of that velvet sky. He got her to talk just to hear the sound
of her voice and she chattered on for a while about airy nothings that
vibrated pleasantly in his ear: told him about a trip she had just had
up to the Indiana lakes, regretted the ruining of a summer frock on a
boating party, asked him his opinion of the necessity of chaperones
on picnics. There was a suggestion of deference in her manner as well
as lightness, a quality that stirred him a little more pleasantly even
than the other qualities. She was different from others he knew.

They mounted a slight rise in the road and then dipped into a cool
hollow fringed about by the shadows of willows. She paused suddenly in
her recital and gave a little ecstatic cry. Seizing his arm she
pointed. Over beyond, through a gap in the willows, lay a stretch of
shadowy river meadow reaching back for a great distance to the second
rise and fringed about its edge by even blacker shadows. And above it
danced a million fire-flies weaving ceaselessly to and fro, waving
their soft lanterns. They hung, a cloud of twinkling radiance, upon a
soft black curtain.

"Oh, stop the car," cried Myrtle. "The lovely things! Let's watch 'em
from here."

For some moments neither spoke. They were drawn up to one side of the
road partly in the shelter of the willows that lined it and it was
snug and pleasant and warm. The light breeze could not reach them. Joe
felt exalted. In this communion of spirit he was experiencing
something entirely new. It was as though he had known her always. He
could feel sure about her. She liked the things he liked. She was
alive and she was not aloof. There was a joy in living; she felt it
and he f