; and at last she
understood his power over her and could lay it away like a jewel in a
case, a precious thing, and yet not to be worn. She saw him, also, in
his stream of being, as she was swept along through hers, and knew how
that old race had given him a beauty which was not his, but
theirs,--and how, in the melancholy of his eyes, she loved a soul long
passed, and in the wonder of his hand the tender lines of other hands,
waving to fiery action. He was an inheritor; and she had loved, not him,
but his inheritance.

Now it was the later dusk of night, and the cocks crowed loudly in a
clear diminuendo, dying far away. Dilly pressed her hands upon her eyes,
and came awake to the outer world. She looked about the room with a warm
smile, and reviewed, in feeling, her happy night. It was no longer hard
to dismantle the place. The room, the house, the race were hers forever;
she had learned the abidingness of what is real. When she closed the
door behind her, she touched the casing as if she loved it, and,
crossing the orchard, she felt as if all the trees could say: "We know,
you and we!"

As she entered the Pike farmyard, Eli was just going to milking, with
clusters of shining pails.

"You're up early," said he. "Well, there's nothin' like the mornin'!"

"No," answered Dilly, smiling at him with the radiance of one who
carries good news, "except night-time! There's a good deal in that!" And
while Eli went gravely on, pondering according to his wont, she ran up
to smooth her tumbled bed.

After breakfast, while Mrs. Pike was carrying away the dishes, Dilly
called Jethro softly to one side.

"You come out in the orchard. I want to speak to you."

Her voice thrilled with something like the gladness of confidence, and
Jethro's own face brightened. Dilly read that vivid anticipation, and
caught her breath. Though she knew it now, the old charm would never be
quite gone. She took his hand and drew him forward. She seemed like a
child, unaffected and not afraid. Out in the path, under the oldest tree
of all, she dropped his hand and faced him.

"Jethro," she said, "we can't do it. We can't get married."

He looked at her amazed. She seemed to be telling good news instead of
bad. She gazed up at him smilingly. He could not understand.

"Don't you care about me?" he asked at length, haltingly; and again
Dilly smiled at him in the same warm confidence.

"Oh, yes," she said eagerly. "I do care, ever and ever so much.