"But I have ambitions, Phares. All my eighteen years of life have been spent on a farm, in the narrow existence of those whose days are passed within one little circle. I want to see things, I want to meet people, I want to live, I want to learn to sing—I can't do any of these things here. Oh, you can't understand my real sincerity in this desire to get away. It is not that I love my home and my people less than you love yours. I feel that I must get away!"
"But your voice, Phœbe, like the scarlet tanager's, is right as God made it. Because we are such old friends it grieves me to see you go. I was hoping you would change your mind—there is so much vanity and evil in the city."
"I'll try to keep from it, Phares. I shall merely learn to sing better, meet a few new people, and be wiser because of the experience."
"It is useless to try to persuade you, I suppose. I hoped you would reconsider it, that you would learn to care for me as I care."
"Phares, don't. You make me unhappy."
"Misery loves company," he quoted, trying to smile.
"But can't you see that marriage is the thing I am thinking least about these days? I am too young."
She looked, indeed, like a fair representation of Youth as she stood by the crude rail fence at the edge of the woods, one arm flung along the rough top rail, her hair tumbled from the walk through the cornfield, her eyes still gleaming with the joy of seeing the tanager, yet shadowy with the startled emotions occasioned by the preacher's wooing.
He looked at her—
"Oh, look! Our tanager is back!" she exclaimed.