The neighbours saw the merry little meal eaten, and saw all hands clear it away at the end, making short work of the many dishes. But afterward twilight fell, and little could be discerned except the gleam of the light dresses and the presence near of dark forms lying on the grass.
It was after the midsummer moon was lighting the garden into a small fairy-land that Peter, springing up, exclaimed, "There's Olive and Murray!" and ran to greet them.
There was a third person with them, and a moment later the others heard Peter exclaim, in a tone of surprise:
"Well, well, well! You don't mean to say this is----Why, how are you? How are you? I 'm tremendously glad to see you!"
"Thank you! I 'm a good deal gladder to be home than anybody possibly can be to have me." And Jane, recognising first the peculiar quality of the voice, cried out:
"Why, it's Forrest!" and led the others, as a general uprising took place.
"Yes, it's Forrest," said the voice, and in the bright moonlight Jane looked up into the face whose outlines in these two years of absence had grown dim in her memory. It was the same face, but she thought it looked older and thinner, and she realised then and there that Forrest was not the same careless boy who had gone so lightly away to lead a soldier's life.
When the greetings were over and the company had settled down again on the turf under the maple, Jane found Forrest next to herself, and had her first little insight into his thoughts.
"I feel like a stranger from a foreign country, I assure you," he was saying to her, presently, as the talk and laughter of the others made a bit of confidence possible. "And the strangest thing of all to me is the sight of my brother grinding away down there in the office, looking like the healthiest fellow in town. I can't understand it; it took me off my feet!"
"We have grown so used to the change," said Jane, smiling to herself, in the dim light, "that we don't think about it any more."