choed the
strident screech of a crimson-crested crane; the horned owl's savage
hunting-cry haunted the night, now near, now floating from infinite
distances.

And after a while I became aware of a nearer sound, low-pitched but
ceaseless--the hum of thousands of lesser living creatures blending to
a steady monotone.

Then the theatrical moon came up through filmy draperies of waving
Spanish moss thin as cobwebs; and far in the wilderness a cougar fell
a-crying and coughing like a little child with a bad cold.

I went in after that. Miss Barrison was sitting before the oven, knees
gathered in her clasped hands, languidly studying the fire. She looked
up as I appeared, opened the oven-doors, sniffed the aroma, and
resumed her attitude of contented indifference.

"Where is the professor?" I asked.

"He has retired. He's been talking in his sleep at moments."

"Better take it down; that's what you're here for," I observed,
closing and holding the outside door. "Ugh! there's a chill in the
air. The dew is pelting down from the pines like a steady fall of
rain."

"You will get fever if you roam about at night," she said. "Mercy!
your coat is soaking. Sit here by the fire."

So I pulled up a bench and sat down beside her like the traditional
spider.

"Miss Muffitt," I said, "don't let me frighten you away--"

"I was going anyhow--"

"Please don't."

"Why?" she demanded, reseating herself.

"Because I like to sit beside you," I said, truthfully.

"Your avowal is startling and not to be substantiated by facts," she
remarked, resting her chin on one hand and gazing into the fire.

"You mean because I went for a stroll by moonlight? I did that because
you always seem to make fun of me as soon as the professor joins us."

"Make fun of you? You surely don't expect me to make eyes at you!"

There was a silence; I toasted my shins, thoughtfully.

"How is your burned finger?" I asked.

She lifted it for my inspection, and I began a protracted examination.

"What would you prescribe?" she inquired, with an absent-minded glance
at the professor's closed door.

"I don't know; perhaps a slight but firm pressure of the
finger-tips--"

"You tried that this afternoon."

"But the dog interrupted us--"

"Interrupted _you_. Besides--"

"What?"

"I don't think you ought to," she said.

Sitting there before the oven, side by side, hand innocently clasped
in hand, we heard the drumming of the dew on the roof, the