She shook her head wearily.
“No; I am quite ready. I want to go.”
And soon they were on the sandy road the buggy had travelled an hour before. Their horses, with heads close together, nodding sleepily as they walked in the starlight, you might have counted the rise and fall of their feet in the sand; and Waldo in his saddle nodded drowsily also. Only Em was awake, and watched the starlit road with wide-open eyes. At last she spoke.
“I wonder if all people feel so old, so very old, when they get to be seventeen?”
“Not older than before,” said Waldo sleepily, pulling at his bridle.
Presently she said again:
“I wish I could have been a little child always. You are good then. You are never selfish; you like every one to have everything; but when you are grown up there are some things you like to have all to yourself, you don’t like any one else to have any of them.”
“Yes,” said Waldo sleepily, and she did not speak again.
When they reached the farmhouse all was dark, for Lyndall had retired as soon as they got home.
Waldo lifted Em from her saddle, and for a moment she leaned her head on his shoulder and clung to him.