He seized her hand and carried it to his lips: "Edith," he pleaded, in a low, tremulous voice, "will you let me be your slave?"
"Not a bit of it," said she, sturdily. She added, looking shyly up at him, "What should I do with a slave?"
Arden was about to kneel at her feet, but she said:
"Nonsense! If you must get on your knees, come and kneel to my strawberry-bed—you ought to thank that, I can tell you." And so the matter-of-fact girl, who could not abide sentiment, got through a scene that she greatly dreaded.
They could see the berries reddening among the green leaves, and the night wind blowing across them was like a gale from Araby the Blest.
"Were it not for this strawberry-bed you would not have obtained absolution to-night. But, Arden," she added, seriously, "here is your way out of trouble, as well as mine. We are near good markets. Give up your poor, slipshod farming (I'm plain, you see) and raise fruit. I will supply you with vines. We will go into partnership. You show what a man can do, and I will show what a girl can do."
He took her hand and looked at her so fondly that she hid her face on his shoulder. He stroked her head and said, in a half-mirthful tone:
"Ah, Edie, Edie, woman once got man out of a garden, but you, I perceive, are destined to lead me into one; and any garden where you are will be Eden to me."
She looked up, with her face suddenly becoming grave and wistful, and said:
"Arden, God will walk in my garden in the cool of the day. You won't hide from Him, will you?"