"Will you have anything to ask me when Christmas comes?"
"If I can wait that long, Drennie," he told her.
"Don't wait, dear," she suddenly exclaimed, turning toward him, and raising eyes that held his answer. "Ask me now!"
But the question which he asked was one that his lips smothered as he pressed them against her own.
Back where the poplar threw its sooty shadow on the road, two figures sat close together on the top of a stile, talking happily in whispers. A girl raised her face, and the moon shone on the deepness of her eyes, as her lips curved in a trembling smile.
"You've come back, Samson," she said in a low voice, "but, if I'd known how lovely she was, I'd have given up hoping. I don't see what made you come."
Her voice dropped again into the tender cadence of dialect.
"I couldn't live withouten ye, Samson. I jest couldn't do hit." Would he remember when she had said that before?
"I reckon, Sally," he promptly told her, "I couldn't live withouten you, neither." Then, he added, fervently, "I'm plumb dead shore I couldn't."