gives visions of a home and the
proper social conditions for rearing a family. All he thought of was the
love making period--the billing and cooing and the transports of delight
which come with it. With Angela he felt that these would be super-normal
precisely because she was so slow in yielding--so on the defensive
against herself. He could look in her eyes at times and see a swooning
veil which foreshadowed a storm of emotion. He would sit by her stroking
her hands, touching her cheek, smoothing her hair, or at other times
holding her in his arms. It was hard for her to resist those significant
pressures he gave, to hold him at arm's length, for she herself was
eager for the delights of love.

It was on the third night of his stay and in the face of his growing
respect for every member of this family, that he swept Angela to the
danger line--would have carried her across it had it not been for a
fortuitous wave of emotion, which was not of his creation, but of hers.

They had been to the little lake, Okoonee, a little way from the house
during the afternoon for a swim.

Afterward he and Angela and David and Marietta had taken a drive. It was
one of those lovely afternoons that come sometimes in summer and speak
direct to the heart of love and beauty. It was so fair and warm, the
shadows of the trees so comforting that they fairly made Eugene's heart
ache. He was young now, life was beautiful, but how would it be when he
was old? A morbid anticipation of disaster seemed to harrow his soul.

The sunset had already died away when they drew near home. Insects
hummed, a cow-bell tinkled now and then; breaths of cool air, those
harbingers of the approaching eve, swept their cheeks as they passed
occasional hollows. Approaching the house they saw the blue smoke curls
rising from the kitchen chimney, foretelling the preparation of the
evening meal. Eugene clasped Angela's hand in an ecstasy of emotion.

He wanted to dream--sitting in the hammock with Angela as the dusk fell,
watching the pretty scene. Life was all around. Jotham and Benjamin came
in from the fields and the sound of their voices and of the splashing
water came from the kitchen door where they were washing. There was an
anticipatory stamping of horses' feet in the barn, the lowing of a
distant cow, the hungry grunt of pigs. Eugene shook his head--it was so
pastoral, so sweet.

At supper he scarcely touched what was put before him, the group at the
dining