She reached this secret nook quite out of breath. Of course there was no real need for all this haste. She knew there wasn't. But youth does not loiter on such errands. She flung herself down in the hammock and for a time lay still. It was cool here, and hazy with dawn. To one side of her the scrub thicket, sprinkled with sturdier growth, lay almost stygian; to the other side was the Betsey road, a bright, tortuous band of morning, threading the Betsey woods as though it were the path of some exploring courier of Sol. Through the flimsy façade of leaves the light of morning streamed into Hilda's bower with a mistily tempered shine. Though ample, this screen afforded plenty of peepholes; and naturally Hilda knew them all. If a storm threshed through the forest and wrenched wisps of woodbine into a different position, or whipped the heavier undergrowth into a new pattern, temporary or permanent as the case might be, the girl was quick to perceive the new order of things and to train her eye to the altered scope of vision. She lay now in the hammock, regaining her breath, and swung herself gently back and forth with the aid of a stout wild grape tendon.
There was a great deal of wild life all about her: birds and squirrels and chipmunks and queer little humming, whirring, chirping insects. Some seasons certain of the cottagers brought up household cats with them from town, when it might be observed that the birds and squirrels were much less in evidence—much more wary and reserved in their deportment. But as it chanced, this year there wasn't a cat on the Point, and the woods were full of day-long frolic.
Hilda had some time to wait. The two persons on whom her innocent espionage was designed, loitered, as we have seen, through their breakfast; and the little girl was almost ready to persuade herself that Louise and Leslie must have taken the much longer, circuitous northern route, when suddenly she heard their voices.
They appeared to be talking softly, as though still imbued with dawn-cautiousness, even where there was no longer the possibility of disturbing any one's slumber. Hilda, lying there so still and expectant, saw them walking together along the road. Leslie's eyes pursued the ground he was treading, but Louise was glancing anxiously up at him.
"You would think we couldn't even be friends any more," she was saying.
And then Hilda heard the lad beside her mutter: "Friends!"—in that tone that appeared to embody so much....
"I'm sure we'll always be the best sort of friends, Leslie," Louise said warmly.
And then they were almost beyond hearing. However, Hilda caught Leslie's thick communication about going back to the city, and it troubled her a good deal. She slipped out of the hammock and peeped through the shielding leaves. She thought to herself: "How well they look together!" And she seemed suddenly full of a vague unhappiness. Out of a subsequent observation: "Louise always looks well with men," Hilda did not for some reason or other, glean the poor ounce of consolation, regarding Leslie, that might appear nestling there.
She left her bower and returned to the cottage in a rather soberer mood, along the open road they had so recently traversed.