precision. She looked up at him then, and her eyes had again the
quick, inquiring glance of some wild creature in a situation foreign to
its habits.

"Well," she said, "well! I guess I don't resk anything. An' if I
did--why, I'd resk it!"

Jethro bent forward a little. He was smiling, and Dilly met the glance,
half fascinated. She wondered that she could forget his smile; and yet
she had forgotten it. Like running water, it was never twice the same.

"Dilly," said he, much moved, "you'll have a good time from this out, if
ever a woman did. You'll keep house in a brick block, where the cars run
by your door, and you can hire two girls."

"Oh, my!" breathed Dilly. A quick look of trouble darkened her face, as
a shadow sweeps across the field.

"What is it?" asked Jethro, in some alarm. "Don't you like what I said?"

Dilly smiled, though her eyes were still apprehensive.

"It ain't that," she answered slowly, striving in her turn to be kind.
"Only I guess I never happened to think before just how't would be. I
never spec'lated much on keepin' house."

"But somebody'd have to keep it," said Jethro good-naturedly, smiling on
her. "We can get good help. You'll like to have a real home table, and
you can invite company every day, if you say so. I never was close,
Dilly,--you know that. I sha'n't make you account for things."

Dilly got up, and, still holding her papers in her apron, walked
swiftly to the window. There she stood, a moment, looking out into the
orchard, where the grass lay tangled under the neglected, happy trees.
Her eyes traveled mechanically from one to another. She knew them all.
That was the "sopsyvine," its red fruitage fast coming on; there was the
Porter she had seen her father graft; and down in the corner grew the
August sweet. Life out there looked so still and sane and homely. She
knew no city streets,--yet the thought of them sounded like a pursuit.
She turned about, and came back to her chair.

"I guess I never dreamt how you lived, Jethro," she said gently. "But it
don't make no matter. You're contented with it."

"I ain't a rich man," said Jethro, with some quiet pride; "but I've got
enough. Yes, I like my business; and city life suits me. You'll fall in
with it, too."

Then silence settled between them; but that never troubled Dilly. She
was used to long musings on her walks to and from her patients, and in
her watching beside their beds. Conversation seemed to her a very
spurious