By her hand on his arm he felt her shrink at the last word. "I love my father, yes. But you're making mistakes about me. Let's talk about Miss Fannie; she'll only be Miss Fannie about two weeks longer. You ought to stay to see her married, Mr. Fair."
"And you are to be bridesmaid! But I must go to-morrow. I wish my father and mother could reach here in time on their way home from New Orleans, but when they get this far your bridal party will have been two days married and gone."
Barbara mused a moment. "You know, this plan for me to give a year to study in the North has been as much mine as pop-a's; but pop-a's entirely responsible for putting me into your father's and mother's care on the journey. I've been in a state of alarm ever since."
"Really, that's wrong! You're going to be a source of great pleasure to them. And you'll like them, too, very much. They are interesting in many ways and good in all, and as travelers they are perfect."
"You give me new courage, Mr. Fair. But"—she spoke more playfully—"I'm afraid of New England, yet. There's a sort of motherly quality in our climate that I can't expect to find there. Won't the snow be still on the ground?"
"Very likely; the higher mountain tops, at least, will be quite covered."
"Well, I'm glad that doesn't mean what I once thought it did. I thought the snow in New England covered the mountain tops the same way the waters covered them in the Deluge."
Fair looked down into his companion's face under the leafy moonlight and halted in a quick glow of inspiration. "When first you see New England, Miss Garnet, nature will have been lying for four months in white, sacramental silence. But presently you will detect a growing change——"
"A stealing out of captivity?"
"Yes!—each step a little quicker than the one behind it——" So he went on for a full minute in praise of the New England spring.