loping her, and
then she said in a low voice: "No, not yet; I can't yet. I want to sit
here. I've never felt the night like this before. It's wonderful, and
I'm not nearly so cold now. I know I oughtn't to be cold at all, in
the middle of summer like this." She paused, and seemed lost in
contemplation of the sky. After a moment she added: "I never knew I
could feel so far away from all the world as I do tonight. But the sky
seems so near, and the moon and the stars so friendly."

"You haven't slept out of doors as I have hundreds of times," he
answered. "The night and I are brothers; the stars are my little
cousins; and the moon"--he giggled in his boyish way--"is my maiden
aunt. She's so prudish and so kind and friendly, as you say. She's like
an aunt I had--Aunt Samantha. She was my father's sister. I used to love
her to visit my mother. She always brought me things, and she gave them
to me as if they were on silver dishes--like a ceremony. She was so
prim, I used to call her Aunt Primrose. She made me feel as if I could
do anything I liked and break any law I pleased. But all the time, like
a saint in a stained-glass window, she always seemed to be saying, 'Yes,
you'd like to, but you mustn't.' She was just like the moon. I'm well
acquainted with the moon, and--"

"Hush!" Louise interrupted. "Don't you hear something stirring--there,
behind us?"

He laughed. "Of course something's always 'stirring behind us' on the
prairie, and things you can't hear at all in the day are almost loud at
night. There are thousands of sounds that never get to your ears when
the sun is busy, but when Aunt Primrose Moon is saying, 'Hush! Hush!' to
the naughty children of this world, you can hear a whole new population
at work, cracking away like mad. Say, ain't I letting myself go
to-night?" he added, giggling again and sitting down beside her. "I'm
going to give you just half an hour, and at the end of that half-hour
you've got to go to sleep."

"I can't--I can't," she said scarcely above a whisper. As though in
response to an unspoken thought, he said casually: "I'm going to walk
awhile when you've lain down, and then--" He pointed to a spot about
twenty yards away. "Do you see the two big stones there? Well, when I've
finished my walk and my talk with Aunty Primrose"--he laughed up at the
moon--"I'm going to sit down there and snooze till daylight." He pointed
again: "Right over there beside those two rocks. That's my bed. Do you