"Stupid," she said, "I loved you that very day."

"What day?"

"The day we both are thinking on: when you met me in the hall with your fish-rod like a guilty dunce—"

"You wore a skirt o' buckskin and tiny moccasins and stockings with scarlet thrums; and you were a-nibbling a cone of maple-sugar," said I.

"And you strove to trip me up!"

"And you pushed me!"

"And you thrust Vix at me!"

"And you kicked my legs and ran up-stairs like a wild-cat thing."

There was a silence; she looked up into my face from my shoulder.

"This, for a belt of peace betwixt those two children who live in memory," said I, and kissed her.