"I have to go, you see," she exclaimed, hurriedly, averting her face.
"Then our desultory conversation must be finished another time."
"If that's what it means, it means delightful!" said Marjorie. "Thank you, and good-bye."
The blue muslin vanished between the rows of currant bushes. She was hardly a radiant vision as she flew down to the gate; in those few minutes what could have happened to the child?
IV.
A RIDE, A WALK, A TALK, AND A TUMBLE.
"Children always turn toward the light"
"Well, Mousie!"
The old voice and the old pet name; no one thought of calling her
"Mousie" but Hollis Rheid.
Her mother said she was noisier than she used to be; perhaps he would not call her Mousie now if he could hear her sing about the house and run up and down stairs and shout when she played games at school. That time when she was so quiet and afraid of everybody seemed ages ago; ages ago before Hollis went to New York. He had returned home once since, but she had been at her grandfather's and had not seen him. Springing to the ground, he caught her in his arms, this tall, strange boy, who had changed so much, and yet who had not changed at all, and lifted her into the back of the open wagon.