responded Liddy. "I am not sure that I want
people to think my husband is working for my father on the farm. Oh, I
didn't mean it that way," as she saw a frown coming, "only I have some
pride as well as you; that is all. Now, Charlie, please don't say
another word about it to-day. Remember, we are children!"

Then she told him about her lone visit to this spot a year before, and
how it affected her.

"Do you know," she explained, "I was terribly scared, and I imagined I
heard ghostly footsteps all around here, and when I reached home I was
as pale as a ghost myself."

"It was a foolish thing to do," he said, "and a silly promise for me to
exact."

"I should have kept it just the same," was her answer, "as long as I
lived."

At noon he rebuilt the little lattice table, and after the dainty dinner
was disposed of, they gathered flowers, picked wintergreen, wove wreaths
for each other's hats and talked silly nothings for hours, and enjoyed
it, too, as lovers will. Late in the afternoon, when tired of this, he
arranged the carriage robe and cushions beside the rock and asked her to
sit beside him. It was a preliminary to some serious utterance, she
felt, for he at once remarked:

"Liddy, I've something to tell you."

She looked at him for a moment, while a smile crept into her face, and
then said:

"Now, Charlie, if you have any more startling or painful things to tell
me, don't bring me up here first, or I shall always dread to come."

"Was my confession of love, made here, painful?" he remarked.

"Of course not," she answered, "nor startling, either, for, as I told
you, I knew that was coming. But the other part of it nearly broke my
heart. You must have thought me silly!"

How earnestly, and in what manner he assured her she did not act silly
on that occasion, but was the sweetest and dearest girl that ever lived,
need not be specified. When that little episode was over and she had
adjusted her hat, she said:

"Now tell me your story, Charlie."

"Well," he replied, "one night nearly two years ago I was on picket
duty, and I made the acquaintance of a young fellow by the name of Frank
Pullen, who belonged to a Maine regiment. We kept up an acquaintance for
two months and in that time became very good friends. We were in much
the same state of mind, for he, too, had a waiting sweetheart at home,
and when we separated we each promised to write to the other, if we
lived to do so. His father is a retired sea