words, and he
longed to try new ways of using it.

"Would you be scared to go down the Corbury road with me on a night like
this?" he asked.

Her cheeks burned redder. "I ain't any more scared than you are!"

"Well, I'd be scared, then; I wouldn't do it. That's an ugly corner down
by the big elm. If a fellow didn't keep his eyes open he'd go plumb into
it." He luxuriated in the sense of protection and authority which his
words conveyed. To prolong and intensify the feeling he added: "I guess
we're well enough here."

She let her lids sink slowly, in the way he loved. "Yes, we're well
enough here," she sighed.

Her tone was so sweet that he took the pipe from his mouth and drew his
chair up to the table. Leaning forward, he touched the farther end of
the strip of brown stuff that she was hemming. "Say, Matt," he began
with a smile, "what do you think I saw under the Varnum spruces, coming
along home just now? I saw a friend of yours getting kissed."

The words had been on his tongue all the evening, but now that he had
spoken them they struck him as inexpressibly vulgar and out of place.

Mattie blushed to the roots of her hair and pulled her needle rapidly
twice or thrice through her work, insensibly drawing the end of it away
from him. "I suppose it was Ruth and Ned," she said in a low voice, as
though he had suddenly touched on something grave.

Ethan had imagined that his allusion might open the way to the accepted
pleasantries, and these perhaps in turn to a harmless caress, if only
a mere touch on her hand. But now he felt as if her blush had set a
flaming guard about her. He supposed it was his natural awkwardness that
made him feel so. He knew that most young men made nothing at all of
giving a pretty girl a kiss, and he remembered that the night before,
when he had put his arm about Mattie, she had not resisted. But that had
been out-of-doors, under the open irresponsible night. Now, in the warm
lamplit room, with all its ancient implications of conformity and order,
she seemed infinitely farther away from him and more unapproachable.

To ease his constraint he said: "I suppose they'll be setting a date
before long."

"Yes. I shouldn't wonder if they got married some time along in the
summer." She pronounced the word married as if her voice caressed it.
It seemed a rustling covert leading to enchanted glades. A pang shot
through Ethan, and he said, twisting away from her in his chair: "It'll
be your