Meanwhile, Asher Aydelot had gone out to the seat Thaine had put up under the honeysuckle trellis.
“It is early for the crowd, Virgie. Come here and watch Boanerges Peeperville tuning up,” Asher Aydelot said as Virginia stood on the veranda a little later.
She came out to the seat under a bower of sweet white honeysuckle and sat down beside her husband.
“The same Bo Peep of the old Virginia days, only he 217 was a half-grown boy then,” she said, watching the Negro bending above his violin. “How faithfully he has served Dr. Carey all these years. He’s past forty now. Asher, we are all getting along.”
“With a boy nineteen tonight, how can it be otherwise?” Asher replied. “But when the Careyville crowd gets here I’m going to ask you for a dance, anyhow, Miss Thaine.”
Virginia stood in the moonlight and looked out over the prairie slumbering in a silver-broidered robe of evening mist.
“How fast the years have gone. Do you remember the night in the old Thaine home in Virginia when you were our guest—too sick to dance?” she asked.
Asher caught her arm and drew her to the seat beside him.
“I remember the jessamine vines and the arbor at the end of the rose garden.”
“We are not old until we forget our own romance days,” Virginia said. “You were my hero that night. You are my hero still.”