“H-have a good time, Cynthy?” said Jethro, looking down into her face. Love had wrought changes in Jethro; mightier changes than he suspected, and the girl did not know how zealous were the sentries of that love, how watchful they were, and how they told him often and again whether her heart, too, was smiling.
“It was very gay,” said Cynthia.
“P-painter-man gay?” inquired Jethro.
Cynthia's eyes were on the orange line of the sunset over Coniston, but she laughed a little, indulgently.
“Cynthy?”
“Yes.”
“Er—that Painter-man hain't such a bad fellow—w-why didn't you ask him in to supper?”
“I'll give you three guesses,” said Cynthia, but she did not wait for them. “It was because I wanted to be alone with you. Milly's gone out, hasn't she?”
“G-gone a-courtin',” said Jethro.
She smiled, and went into the house to see whether Milly had done her duty before she left. It was characteristic of Cynthia not to have mentioned the subject which was agitating her mind until they were seated on opposite sides of the basswood table.