"I suppose so. You are sure you don't mind my going to the stores with him, mother?"
Her mother arose from the table. There was a suggestion of fatalism in her reply. "I think I can understand your desire to be with him." She went to the kitchen window and looked over at the house next door. "He is out in his back yard now, Viola," she said, after a long pause, "all dressed and waiting for you. You had better get ready."
"It will not hurt him to wait awhile," said Viola perversely. "In fact, it will do him good. He thinks he is a very high and mighty person, mother." She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. "I shall keep him waiting for just an hour."
Rachel's strong, firm shoulders drooped a little as she passed into the sitting-room. She sat down abruptly in one of the stiff rocking-chairs, and one with sharp ears might have heard her whisper to herself:
"We cannot blindfold the eyes of nature. They see through everything."
It was nine o'clock when Viola stepped out into her front yard, reticule in hand, and sauntered slowly down the walk, stopping now and then to inspect some Maytime shoot. He was waiting for her outside his own gate.
"What a sleepy-head you are," was her greeting as she came up to him.
"I've been up since six o'clock," he said.
"Then, for goodness' sake, why have you kept me waiting all this time?"
"My dear Viola, I was not born yesterday, nor yet the day before," he announced, with aggravating calmness. "Long before you were out of short frocks and pantalettes I was a wise old gentleman."