," she said, facing about near the gateway and waiting
for him to ride alongside.

The young man caught the cue. "I wish you would call me John. I've been
intending to ask you for some time. I have a given name," he added.

"Will you do the same?" she asked.

"Call myself John?" he replied.

They both laughed as if a great witticism had been perpetrated.

"No, call me by my given name."

"Lizzie, Bess, Elizabeth, or Sis?" he asked, remembering the various
nicknames of her family.

"You may call me whatever you choose," she answered, drawing the pony up
where they were to dismount.

John Hunter stepped to the ground and with his bridle rein over his arm
came around to the left side of her pony. Laying one hand on its neck and
the other on the hand that grasped its bridle, he looked up into her face
earnestly and said:

"I would like to call you 'Wife,' if I may, Elizabeth," and held up his
arms quickly to help her from the saddle.

When she was on the ground before him he barred her way and stood, pulsing
and insistent, waiting for her answer.

It was a full minute before either moved, she looking down at their feet,
he looking at her and trying to be sure he could push his claims.

When Elizabeth did look up it was with her eyes brimming shyly over with
happy tears, and without waiting for her answer in words, John Hunter
gathered her into his arms and smothered her face in kisses.

Ten minutes later they tied the horses to the new hitching post and passed
into the yard.

"It is to be your house and mine, dearie," the young man said, and then
looked down at her to see why she did not answer.

Elizabeth was walking toward the house which was to be hers, oblivious of
time and place, almost unconscious of the man at her side, stunned by the
unexpectedness of this precious gift of love which had just been offered
her. As they stepped upon the little back porch, he said:

"I brought you over to ask your advice about the stairway; the carpenters
want to leave one step in the sitting room. It'll be back far enough from
the chimney to be out of the way and it makes their calculations easier
about the stairs somehow. What do you think?"

Elizabeth was altogether too new in the sense of possession to grasp the
full significance of the question. John Hunter laughed at the look she
turned upon him and said, with a large and benevolent wave of the hand,
indicating the entire premises:

"The house is yours, litt