should walk to a point of the Creston road
where Harney was to pick her up and drive her across the hills to
Hepburn in time for the nine-thirty train to Nettleton. Harney at first
had been rather lukewarm about the trip. He declared himself ready to
take her to Nettleton, but urged her not to go on the Fourth of July,
on account of the crowds, the probable lateness of the trains,
the difficulty of her getting back before night; but her evident
disappointment caused him to give way, and even to affect a faint
enthusiasm for the adventure. She understood why he was not more eager:
he must have seen sights beside which even a Fourth of July at Nettleton
would seem tame. But she had never seen anything; and a great longing
possessed her to walk the streets of a big town on a holiday, clinging
to his arm and jostled by idle crowds in their best clothes. The only
cloud on the prospect was the fact that the shops would be closed; but
she hoped he would take her back another day, when they were open.

She started out unnoticed in the early sunlight, slipping through the
kitchen while Verena bent above the stove. To avoid attracting notice,
she carried her new hat carefully wrapped up, and had thrown a long
grey veil of Mrs. Royall's over the new white muslin dress which Ally's
clever fingers had made for her. All of the ten dollars Mr. Royall had
given her, and a part of her own savings as well, had been spent on
renewing her wardrobe; and when Harney jumped out of the buggy to meet
her she read her reward in his eyes.

The freckled boy who had brought her the note two weeks earlier was
to wait with the buggy at Hepburn till their return. He perched at
Charity's feet, his legs dangling between the wheels, and they could
not say much because of his presence. But it did not greatly matter, for
their past was now rich enough to have given them a private language;
and with the long day stretching before them like the blue distance
beyond the hills there was a delicate pleasure in postponement.

When Charity, in response to Harney's message, had gone to meet him at
the Creston pool her heart had been so full of mortification and anger
that his first words might easily have estranged her. But it happened
that he had found the right word, which was one of simple friendship.
His tone had instantly justified her, and put her guardian in the
wrong. He had made no allusion to what had passed between Mr. Royall and
himself, but had simp