"The idea!" said Alida, from an unbroken calm. "I should think you were crazy."
Dorcas stopped in the road, decisively, as if the moment had come for them to part.
"That's what I should do, 'Lida," she said, "to-night, every night along about eight, till it happens. An' I should wear my blue."
Alida turned away, as if she felt something unmaidenly in the suggestion and might well remove herself; yet Dorcas knew she would remember. They had separated, and when they were a dozen paces apart, Dorcas called again:—
"'Lida!"
Alida turned. Again Dorcas spoke shyly, from the weight of her great task.
"'Lida, Newell Bond's sellin' off Sunset Hill. He's doin' well for himself."
"Is he?" returned Alida primly. "I hadn't heard of it." Then she turned and, keeping her feet carefully from the dust, went on again.
It seemed to Dorcas that night as if she could not wait to finish the bowl of bread and milk that made her supper, and to put on her white muslin and seat herself by the window. She felt as if the world were rushing fast, the flowers in the garden hurrying to open, the sun to get into the sky and make it redder than ever it had been before, and all happy people to be happier. Something seemed sweeping after her, and she dared not turn and look it in the face. But her heart told her it was the moment that would come after her work had been accomplished and Newell had found Alida. As if she had known it would be so, she saw him coming down the road and called to him. He was walking very fast, his head up, and his hands, she presently saw, clenched as they swung.
"Newell!" she cried, "come in."