ly she would come! His head had begun to ache. His
hand was shaking. Where the blood pounded in his wrists there was a
flurried sense of pain. And somehow the heavy odor of the pines and
the chill silence was depressing.

It was his fate to see Mr. Abbott come first. Unaware of the Irishman
who drew back at his approach, his hot heart sick with disappointment,
he opened the door of the cabin and went in, the inevitable book under
his arm. A second later the cabin window with its shade drawn, sprang
out of the shadow, a yellow checkerpane of light. Kenny stalked off,
chafing intolerantly at the anticlimacteric tenor of his summer.

He saw her coming a long way off, her lantern bobbing along like a
firefly, and walked faster. Impatience brought a cold sweat out upon
his forehead and then he needs must call her name before she could hear.

"Joan!" he called a little later. The tenderness in his heart hurt.

The light faltered and became a fixed point in the darkness ahead.

"It is I, Kenny!" he called again.

Once more the firefly glimmer glided toward him.

"Kenny," called Joan in the darkness, "is it really you? You
frightened me a little. And why in the world didn't you come home to
supper? Hannah's wondering where you are."

But his voice failed him and with shaking hand he took the lantern and
held it high above her head. If he could but read her eyes!

Joan glanced up at him in wonder and the hood of her cloak tumbling
back upon her shoulders, bared her hair. It shone, in the lantern
light, with an odd dark gold. She had never seemed so lovely--or so
much a part of the lonely wood.

"Why do you stare so, Kenny?" she asked. "And why are you so--quiet?"

"Mavourneen!" said Kenny. And his eyes implored.

It was not at all what he had meant to say. The word, tell-tale in its
tenderness, had seemed to speak itself.

Joan's face flamed. But her eyes were beautiful and kind.

Kenny dropped the lantern with a crash and caught her in his arms. She
cried and clung to him in the darkness.

"Joan! Joan!" he said and kissed her.

He did not remember how long he stood there under the bright November
stars with Joan in his arms and his face upon her hair. He knew his
eyes were wet. He knew there was peace in his heart and a vast
content. But something made him dumb and tongue-tied.

"Kenny!" exclaimed Joan. "The lantern!"

"I know, colleen," said Kenny, "but one lantern more or less in a