ed tone.

"Why, I ain't got the key," Creed reminded her. "I left it with
you--didn't you bring it?"

They drew unconsciously close together in the dark with something of the
guilty consternation of childish culprits. A mishap of the sort ripens an
acquaintance swiftly.

"What a gump I was!" Judith breathed with sudden low laughter. He could
see her eyes shining in the gloom, and the dim outline of her figure. "I
knowed well an' good you didn't have the key--hit's in the blue bowl on
the fire-board at home."

"I ought to have thought of it," asserted Creed shouldering the blame.
"And I'm sorry; I wanted to show you my mother's picture."

"An' _I'm_ sorry," echoed Judith, remembering fleetingly the swept and
garnished rooms, the wreath of red roses; "I had something to show you,
too."

Nothing was said of the dishes for the merrymakers at Judith's house.
Another interest was obtruding itself into the simple, practical
expedition, crowding aside its original purpose. The girl looked around
the dim, weed-grown garden, its bushes blots of deeper shadow upon the
darkness, its blossoms vaguely conjectured by their odour.

"There used to be a bubby bush--a sweet-scented shrub--over in that
corner," Creed hesitated. "I'd like to get you some of the bubbies. My
mother used to pick 'em and put 'em in the bureau drawers I remember, and
they made everything smell nice."

He had taken her hand and led her with him, advancing uncertainly toward
the flowers. He felt her shiver, and halted instantly.

"Yo' cold!" he said. "Let me take my coat off and put it around ye--I
don't need it. You got overheated playing back there, and now you'll
catch a cold."

"Oh, no," disclaimed Judith, whose little shudder had been as much from
excitement as from the sharp chill of the night air after the heated
play-room. "I reckon somebody jest walked over my grave--I ain't cold."

But he had pulled off the coat while he spoke, and now he turned to put
it about her, and drew her back to the doorstep. Judith was full of a
strange ecstasy as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. The lover's
earliest and favourite artifice--the primitive kindness of wrapping her
in his own garment! Even Creed, unready and unschooled as he was, felt
stir within him its intimate appeal.

A nebulous lightening which had been making itself felt behind the
eastern line of mountains now came plainly in view, late moon, melancholy
and significant, as the waning moo