The train was in; it had whizzed around the corner of Raymond's farm over an hour ago, and Ralph had had time to nearly make the distance between the depôt and a certain tall sycamore tree, where she had decided to stop and wait; so she strolled slowly, with her eyes down, and thought of him. He would look just as he used to, she thought, not realizing the time that had elapsed, nor how much she had changed herself. There would be the merry dark eyes, and faint mustache, the eager, almost boyish face and figure, and he would kiss her, as he used to, and how funny it would seem, to think they were nearly engaged.
She smiled to herself, unconscious that he was drawing near, and eagerly watching the pretty, slight, blue-robed figure, strolling in the sunshine; but she looked up in a moment and saw him.
Was that Ralph? She felt her heart jump clear into her throat; as she paused, and stared at the tall gentleman rapidly approaching, and she had no strength to take another step. She had arranged a little speech to deliver at the proper moment, but,
"By the sycamore passed he, and through the white clover;"
then all the sweet speech she had fashioned took flight. He came nearer with eager brightness in his handsome eyes; he took her two resistless hands and looked under her hat-brim.
"Kathleen, is it you?"
At the sound of the voice, which was still the same, Kat was covered with a swift, shy confusion. She had expected a boy; there had come to her a man, who had come at her bidding, and who loved her. She longed to run away or hide her head, or something, but how could she when he held her hands, and persisted in looking under her hat.
"I expected to find you racing along the road or sitting on a fence, and waiting for me," he said, with a laugh. "I looked for my dear romp, and instead of that, I meet a graceful lovely young woman with the sweetest face in the world, and I don't believe she's glad to see me."
"What made you go and change so?" stammered Kat, still unable to reconcile the vision before her with the boyish Ralph Tremayne. "I'd never known you, anywhere."
"Nor I, you, hardly. What made you go and change so?" retorted he.