A week later Amanda and Martin were sitting in one of the big rooms of the Reist farmhouse. Through the open door came the sound of Millie and Mrs. Reist in conversation, with an occasional deeper note in Uncle Amos’s slow, contented voice.
“Do you know,” said Martin, “I was never much of a hand to remember poetry, but there’s one verse I read at school that keeps coming to me since I know you are going to marry me. That verse about
’A perfect woman, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command.’”
“Oh, no, Martin! You put me on a pedestal, and that’s a tottering bit of architecture.”
“Not on a pedestal,” he contradicted, “but right by my side, walking together, that’s the way we want to go.”
“That’s the only way. It’s the way my parents went and the way yours are still going.” She rose and brought to him a little book. “Read Riley’s ‘Song of the Road,’” she told him.
He opened the book and read the musical verses:
“’O I will walk with you, my lad, whichever way you fare,
You’ll have me, too, the side o’ you, with heart as light as air.
No care for where the road you take’s a-leadin’--anywhere,--
It can but be a joyful ja’nt the whilst you journey there.
The road you take’s the path o’ love, an’ that’s the bridth o’ two--
An’ I will walk with you, my lad--O I will walk with you.’
“Why,” he exclaimed, “that’s beautiful! Riley knew how to put into words the things we all feel but can’t express. Let’s read the rest.”
Her voice blended with his and out in the adjoining room Millie heard and listened. Silently the hired girl walked to the open door. She watched the two heads bending over the little book. Her heart ached for the happy childhood and the romance she had missed. The closing words of the poem came distinctly to her;