"Well, I must run along," said Leslie, drawing a deep and very leisurely breath.
"Do you have to go so soon?" Hilda stepped down toward him.
He nodded, thrust his hands into his pockets, drew them out again, was painfully conscious that Louise was sitting up there on the porch.
Hilda came down another step and stood close to him. "It's awfully early, Les." Then a brilliant idea sent her unexpectedly scurrying up the steps and on to the porch. She whispered something in her mother's ear, upon which Mrs. Needham looked somewhat startled and shook her head. She and Eliza had planned so carefully. Leslie seemed almost like one of the family; but what if there shouldn't be enough?
Hilda tossed it off gallantly. She tripped back down the steps and said she would go with Leslie as far as the choke-cherry tree.
"Good-bye," said Leslie politely to the porch.
"Good-bye, Leslie," said the Rev. and Mrs. Needham in unison.
And it never occurred to them as odd that their younger should be accompanying Leslie as far as the choke-cherry tree. Oh, the incredible blindness of parents! Oh, what strangers one's children really are, after all! And yet, how could it be otherwise? Quaint souls—perhaps they did not even remember, now Lynndal had come, that it was to the choke-cherry tree their elder had been wont to go....
Louise called out: "'Bye, Les." She was rocking more vigorously. Her hands were clasped behind her head and her cheeks were flushed. There was a curious wild look in her eyes. Aunt Marjie thought her actually handsome just then.
At the choke-cherry tree Leslie and Hilda indulged in a very desultory leave-taking. Yet their talk was utterly devoid of anything either poetic or romantic.