"Well, be sure you don't lose yourselves!" No, even Marjory, with her amazing retrospect of brass, did not quite dare to say: "Don't lose him!" And yet, so far as her heart was concerned, it really amounted to that.
The last thing Hilda heard, as she sped off, was the patient voice of Lynndal Barry. The minister had asked him another question about the sorghums.
"Yes," Barry was saying, "there are about as many varieties of Kaffir corn and milo maize as of the saccharine sorghums. Only a few have been tested in the South: red Kaffir corn, black hulled white Kaffir, standard milo maize, and dwarf milo maize. But we intend—"
Hilda, skipping with happiness, heard no more.
6
The procession through the forest of Betsey was a very romantic affair. First came Hilda and Leslie, the latter carrying the lighted Japanese lantern swung over his shoulder. And behind them walked Mr. O'Donnell, like some great monarch; and he must indeed, just then, have felt himself at least the king of all travelling men. What would his colleagues of the grip think if they could see him now? Had any of them, for all their store of timetables and their samples and routes and customers, ever marched through so royal a forest, on such a night, lighted by young love and a gay paper lantern?
Over the hills and through the valleys of Betsey! It was a wonderful lark. Of course it wouldn't last. Real larks never did. He would go back to his grim bag of samples, and she would go back to her beloved Tahulamaji. There would be thousands of miles between them once more, and life would settle back into the uneventful dog-trot which had become the established gait. But tonight! Tonight he was parading the forest of Betsey like a very king, and his way was lighted by a bright paper lantern which danced at the end of a bough.
"Now," he thought slyly, "if I were a poet...." However, being no poet, but only a travelling man in the employ of Babbit & Babbit, our friend simply walked along, like the plain mortal he was; and was content, if with a sigh, things should be as they were. "Ah, this is fine!" he would exclaim in his quiet way. And Hilda, for all her heart was so richly moved, would merely reply: "Yes, we like it."