With a wave of his hand, he fled on his way, and found Kathleen, flushed from her walk, carrying mosses to the table in the wind-break.
"I've finished," he cried, vaulting over the railing and appearing beside her. "Want to see it?"
She looked up into his expectant eyes.
"Are we invited?" she returned.
"To-morrow, everybody is; but I thought I'd like you to see it right now—if you aren't too tired."
"A private view!" she exclaimed. "Who was ever too tired for that? But I'm of the earth so earthy, I shall have to go in and wash my hands."
"No, no, don't," replied Phil softly. "You'd meet Aunt Isabel, and this is to be clandestine. Wipe your hands on this,"—he pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket,—"and come."
Kathleen laughed and brushing her fingers free of traces of the treasured moss, she wiped them and they started across the field.
"Here's hoping Violet and Edgar don't see us," said Phil, and took the path he had trodden so often straight to the hen-house, and which did not pass very near the Wrights.
As they approached, Kathleen looked curiously at the little cottage with its sloping red roof, nestling close to the ground on the breast of the hill and sheltered by the tall Balm-of-Gilead trees. Their rustling leaves held always a murmur as of rain and to-day fleecy white clouds piled against the blue sky behind the cottage.