“You must get your coat, Billy,” Erminie warned as they went out of the pavilion. “Mine too. I hung them both on that big cedar. I’ll walk on.”
When he went to find them he noticed some one start hastily away from the tree and slip around the other side. He wondered a little why any one should be there instead of dancing, but he was too absorbed with Erminie to think long of anything else; and he ran back to her, putting on his coat as he went.
“Is it all right?” he asked as he helped her on with hers.
“Yes. Did you think it had changed color?”
“I might have taken the wrong one, you know.”
“Billy, let’s go round by those trees to a place I know that’s beautiful,—high above the water.”
“That goes. Is it far? We mustn’t be late to the boat.”
“Only a little way, a block or two. We can hear the whistle and run.”
They followed a smooth trail to a jutting point where the underbrush had been cut and a rustic seat placed to catch the full beauty of the view.
The warm fragrance of the evening, the pulsing melodies that floated to them softened by distance and foliage, the brilliant moon silvering the broad lake that splashed softly at their feet, the ghostly mountain in the south looming into the sky till it seemed a white pathway right into heaven itself,—it is little wonder that they sat silent, entranced for a moment, each thrilled by the spell of the night.