The few remaining evenings ere Liddy and her lover were to part were not wasted by them, and the last Sunday was one long to be remembered.
"Come early," she had said the night before; "I have a little surprise for you." When he arrived at her house that day, just as the distant church bells were faintly calling, he found her dressed for a ride, and was a little puzzled.
"I want you to take me to church to-day," she said, smiling, and then added, in a low voice, "to our church on the top of Blue Hill, where there will be no one but God and ourselves."
It was an odd thought, and yet, knowing her as he did, it was not surprising. The simple reverence of it touched him, however.
"Now," she continued more cheerfully, "no more sober thoughts. Let us try and be happy, and like children once more. Here is a basket I have packed, and you are to put it in the carriage. We are to dine in the woods."
The day was one of those rare ones that come only in June, and when they reached the spot, now, henceforth and forever sacred to them, the sheltering trees were fresh with new foliage, the birds singing while building their nests, the summer breeze softly whispering in the scattered hemlocks, and over all shone the mellow sunshine.
For a long time they sat on the rock, now hallowed by her tears, viewing the beautiful landscape spreading out below and living over, as they had many times before, and as young lovers will, all the little incidents of their lives, and what a marvelous thing it was that they had come to love each other. It was all a story as old as the rock upon which they sat, and pure and sweet as the blue violets blooming at their feet. In the midst of it Manson pointed to a spot in the valley below—a cedar pasture with an immense boulder in the middle—and said: "Once upon a time, several years ago, when I was a boy, I was picking berries in that field, when a little girl in short dress and calico sun-bonnet came running down a path near me until, almost at my feet, she stumbled, and girl, berries and bonnet went sprawling upon the ground! Can you guess who it was?"
Liddy turned her face toward him and smilingly answered: "Was that the way I entered your heart, Charlie? It wasn't a dignified way, was it?"
"It was at least effective," he replied, "for you have remained in it ever since."
When the sun was high overhead she arose and said, with bewitching imperiousness: "Now, sir, you have been idle long enough; you must help me set the table. Bring me that basket in the carriage."