"That didn't keep either of them from growing up a man and a woman. Looks to me as if they were beginning to find it out, parson."
I considered his idea, and found it so eminently right, proper, and beautiful, that I smiled over it. "It would be ideal," I admitted.
"Her mother wouldn't agree with you, though her father might," he said dryly. And he asked:
"Ever had a hunch?"
"A presentiment, you mean?"
"No; a hunch. Well, I've got one. I've got a hunch there's trouble ahead for that girl."
This seemed so improbable, in the light of her fortunate days, that I smiled cheerfully.
"Well, if there should be,—here are you and I to stand by."
"Sure," said he, laconically, "that's all we're here for—to stand by."
Although it was January, the weather was again springlike. All day the air was like a golden wine, drenched in a golden sun. All day in the cedars' dark and vivid green the little wax-wings flew in and out, and everywhere the blackberry bramble that "would grace the parlors of heaven" was unfolding its crisp red leaves and white buds; and all the roads and woods were gay with the scarlet berries of the casida, which the robins love. And the nights were clear and still and starry, nights of a beauty so vital one sensed it as something alive.