"Do you know where you're going, Jim Barlow, anyway?"
And he retorted with equal spirit:
"D' you s'pose I'd haul such a heavy creatur' 's you so fur on a wrong road?"
After which little interchange of amenities, the pair crawled forward again and came at last to a hedge of honeysuckle bordering a wide lane. The fragrance brought back to Dorothy's memory her own one, carefully tended vine in the little garden on Brown Street, and sent a desolate feeling through her heart. Sent repentant tears, also, to her eyes and made her reach her hand out toward her companion, with a fresh apology:
"Jim, I've got to say 'forgive me,' again and—I do say it—yet I hate it. You've been so good and—Smell the honeysuckle! My darling father John told me there were quantities of it growing wild all through Maryland, but I never half-believed it before. It makes me cry!"
"Set down an' cry, then, if you want to. I just as lief's you would. I'm tired."
This concession had the remarkable effect of banishing tears from Dorothy's eyes. She had tottered along on one foot and the tips of the toes of the other, till the injured one had become seriously strained and pained her so that rest she must, whether he were willing or not. It was comparatively dry on the further side the hedge, and the vines themselves, so closely interwoven, made a comfortable support for their tired backs. As she leaned against it, the girl's sense of humor made her exclaim:
"That's the funniest thing! I felt I must cry my eyes out, yet when you said 'go ahead and do it,' every tear dried up! But, I'm sleepy. Do you suppose we dare go to sleep for a few minutes."
"Pshaw! I'm sleepy, too. An' I'm goin'—s'posin' er no s'posin'."
After that, there was a long silence under the honeysuckle hedge. A second shower, longer and more violent than the first, arose, and dashed its cool drops on the faces of these young sleepers, but they knew nothing of that. The storm cleared and the late moon came out and shone upon them, yet still they did not stir. It was not until the sun itself sent its hot, summer rays across their closed lids that Jim awoke and saw a man standing beside them in the lane and staring at Dorothy with the keenest attention.