‘I think not materially,’ said Mary.
‘Well,’ said Cerinthy, rising, ‘the men will be coming home from mowing before I get home, and want their supper. Mother has one of her headaches on this afternoon, so I can’t stop any longer: there isn’t a soul in the house knows where anything is when I am gone. If I should ever take it into my head to go off, I don’t know what would become of father and mother. I was telling mother the other day that I thought unregenerate folks were of some use in this world any way.’
‘Does your mother know anything about it?’ said Mary.
‘Oh, as to mother, I believe she has been hoping and praying about it these three months. She thinks that I am such a desperate case, it is the only way I am to be brought in, as she calls it. That’s what set me against him at first; but the fact is, if girls will let a man argue with them, he always contrives to get the best of it. I am provoked about it too; but dear me! he is so meek there is no use of getting provoked at him. Well, I guess I will go home and think about it.’
As she turned to go she looked really pretty. Her long lashes were wet with a twinkling moisture, like meadow-grass after a shower; and there was a softened, child-like expression stealing over the careless gaiety of her face. Mary put her arms round her with a gentle caressing movement, which the other returned with a hearty embrace. They stood locked in each other’s arms; the bright, vigorous, strong-hearted girl, with that pale, spiritual face resting on her breast, as when the morning, songful and radiant, clasps the pale silver moon to her glowing bosom.
‘Look here now, Mary,’ said Cerinthy; ‘your folks are all gone, you may as well walk with me. It’s pleasant now.’
‘Yes, I will,’ said Mary; ‘wait a moment till I get my bonnet.’
In a few moments the two girls were walking together in one of those little pasture foot-tracks which run cosily among huckleberry and juniper bushes, while Cerinthy eagerly pursued the subject she could not leave thinking of.
Their path now wound over high ground that overlooked the distant sea, now lost itself in little copses of cedar and pitch-pine; and now there came on the air the pleasant breath of new hay, which mowers were harvesting in adjoining meadows.
They walked on and on as girls will; because when a young lady has once fairly launched on the enterprise of telling another all that he said, and just how he looked for the last three months, walks are apt to be indefinitely extended.