“Try me,” he half whispered. There was a tense moment. Mabella’s voice came ringing from the house, the whirr of the threshing mill suddenly seemed near at hand, and through it there came Lanty’s voice shouting some directions to the men on the stack.
“Perhaps I may some day,” she said.
“You know,” he said, his voice enchaining her attention even as she strove with bitter thought, “you know you will have the opportunity to ask anything, everything of me.”
“Ah, how should I know?” she said, as one who has not deigned to observe too much.
Sally, sent out for the apples, appeared round the corner of the house.
“Promise me,” said Sidney, “that you will come for a walk after supper; promise.”
For an instant the boulders of Mullein meadow and the dimness of the twilight sky blotted out the crimson of the Virginia creeper on the porch which flamed in the sun.
“I will come,” she said.
“Ah——” he said no more.
“Sorry t’interrupt,” said Sally genially, as she stood beside them. “But painful as the duty is it must be did; but don’t mind me, I’m blind in one eye and can’t see out of the other.”