ch as there
is in Nature. I won't see so much of that down there."

"In some cases," said Roberta, slowly, "autumn is impossible."

They had reached the bottom of the steps, and Lawrence turned and looked
toward her. "Do you mean," he asked, "when there has been no real
summer?"

Roberta laughed. "Of course," said she, "if there has been no summer
there can be no autumn. But you know there are places where it is summer
all the time. Would you like to live in such a clime?"

Lawrence Croft put one foot on the step, and then he drew it back. "Miss
March," said he, "my train does not leave until the afternoon, and I am
coming over here in the morning to have one more walk in the woods with
you. May I?"

"Certainly," she said, "I shall be delighted; that is, if you can
overlook the fact that it is autumn."

When Miss Roberta returned to the house she found Junius Keswick
sitting on a bench on the porch. She went over to him, and took a seat
at the other end of the bench.

"So your gentleman is gone," he said.

"Yes," she answered, "but only for the present. He is coming back in the
morning."

"What for?" asked Keswick, a little abruptly.

Miss Roberta took off her hat, for there was no need of a hat on a
shaded porch, and holding it by the ribbons, she let it gently slide
down toward her feet. "He is coming," she said, speaking rather slowly,
"to take a walk with me, and I know very well that when we have reached
some place where he is sure there is no one to hear him, he is going to
tell me that he loves me; that he did not intend to speak quite so soon,
but that circumstances have made it impossible for him to restrain
himself any longer, and he will ask me to be his wife."

"And what are you going to say to him?" asked Keswick.

"I don't know," replied Roberta, her eyes fixed upon the hat which she
still held by its long ribbons.

The next morning Junius Keswick, who had been up a long, long time
before breakfast, sat, after that meal, looking at Roberta who was
reading a book in the parlor. "She is a strange girl," thought he. "I
cannot understand her. How is it possible that she can sit there so
placidly reading that volume of Huxley, which I know she never saw
before and which she has opened just about the middle, on a morning
when she is expecting a man who will say things to her which may change
her whole life. I could almost imagine that she has forgotten all about
it."

Peggy, who had just enter