And soon a light shone down from an upstairs window. Judith started up. "You must go straight away home," she said, "Mrs. Morris has gone to her room."
"Come as far as the gate with me," said Andrew, and she went. But after they had talked a moment Judith remembered the bats, so, of course, Andrew had to take her back to the porch in safety.
At length he was forced to go, so with a last "good-night," and a last long look into her eyes, he strode away to his home on the hill.
The leaves of the chestnut trees were rustling in uncertain flaws of wind; the crickets were creaking eerily from out the darkness; the fields, all pearled with dew, shimmered in the moonlight.
It was a solitary hour. But Andrew's heart was light within his breast; Judith's eyes had been very sweet when she said "Good-night."
And Judith climbed the blue-painted wooden stairs to her little corner-room, and lay long awake, forgetting the promise of her great future, forgetting the efforts of the past, forgetting the debt she owed her manager, only knowing that she loved and was beloved again, only recalling the eyes this brown young farmer had bent upon her, only remembering the tender strength of his arms, as, for a moment, they had encircled her. A simple dream this? Perhaps. But let such a vision once weave itself into the fabric of a life, and all else will seem poor and mean beside it.
It was a beautiful sunshiny Sunday as Judith stood in the porch waiting for Mrs. Morris, who presently appeared, clad in a black calico with white spots on it, black silk gloves and a bonnet with a purple flower.
Judith had dressed herself in a little frock of pale green linen, and her face bloomed like a rose above it. Her hat and parasol were of the same cool tint as her frock, and as the walk in the sunshine flushed her cheeks with unaccustomed colour, she looked much like a sweet pink flower set in green leaves; at least, so Andrew thought when he saw her entering the church beside Mrs. Morris.
The Methodist church was slowly filling with women and children. Sam Symmons' Suse had just gone in, and the Misses Green were but a few yards behind. The men in Ovid had an evil habit of standing along the sides of the churches talking whilst the first hymn was being sung; and frequently, if there was any particularly interesting topic on hand, till the first prayer was offered. In winter the sunny side was chosen; in summer they availed themselves of the scanty shade afforded by the slanting eaves, standing, their heads and shoulders in shadow, their freshly polished shoes glistening in the sun, their jaws moving rhythmically as they chewed their wads of "black strap." A remark made at one end of the row percolated slowly to the other, each man judicially revolving it in his mind and voicing his opinion in deliberate nasal tones.
"Lord, a little band and lowly,
We have come to worship thee,
Thou art great and high and holy,
Oh! how solemn we should be."