d on the high slope of the mountain, apart from its
availability for the surveillance of any eccentric doings of the
comet, was an acceptable lounging-place for the sake of the air, the
dew, the hope of a vagrant breeze, and, more than all, the ample
"elbow-room" which it offered the rest of the family while he talked
with Theodosia Blakely. The rest of the family--unwelcome
wights!--were not disposed to make their existence obtrusive; on the
contrary, they did much to further his wishes, even to the sacrifice
of personal predilection. Mrs. Blakely, her arms befloured, her hands
in the dough, had observed him at the gate, while she stood at the
biscuit-block in the shed-room, and although pining to rush forth and
ask the latest news from the settlement and the comet, she only called
out in a husky undertone: "'Dosia, 'Dosia, yander's Justus a-kemin' in
the gate! Put on yer white apern, chile."

Because she had been adjured to put on her white apron, Theodosia did
not put it on. She advanced to the window, about which grew, with its
graceful habit, a hop-vine. A little slanting roof was above the
lintel, a mere board or so, with a few warped shingles; but it made a
gentle shadow, and Theodosia thought few men besides the one at the
gate would have failed to see her there. He lingered a little, turning
back to glance over the landscape, and then he deflected his course
toward a rough bench that was placed in a corner of the rail fence,
threw himself upon it, and fanned himself with his broad-brimmed hat.

"The insurance o' the critter! I'm a mind ter leave ye a-settin' thar
by yerse'f till ye be wore out waitin'," she muttered.

She hesitated a moment, then took her sunbonnet and went out to meet
him.

The scene was like some great painting, with this corner in the
foreground left unfinished, so minute was the detail of the distance,
so elaborate and perfect the coloring of the curves of purple, and
amethyst, and blue mountains afar off, rising in tiers about the
cup-shaped valley. Above it hung a tawny tissue of haze, surcharged
with a deeply red, vinous splendor, as if spilled from the stirrup-cup
of the departing sun. He was already out of sight, spurring along
unknown ways. The sky was yellow here and amber there, and a pearly
flake, its only cloud, glittered white in the midst. Up the hither
slope the various green of the pine and the poplar, the sycamore and
the sweet-gum, was keenly differentiated, but where th