od to me. One wondrous evening
before hope died utterly I survived the ordeal of walking home with her
from church.

She came with her aunt, uncle, and I present by the god's permission,
surmised that she might leave them and go to her own home alone when
church was out. Through that service I worshipped her golden braids and
the pink roses on her leghorn hat. And when they sang, "Praise God from
whom all blessings flow!" my voice soared fervently in the words, for I
had satisfied myself by much craning of the neck that Solon Denney was
not present. Even now the Doxology revives within me that mixed emotion
of relief at his absence and apprehension for the approaching encounter
with her.

She passed me at the portals of the house of a double worship, said good
night to aunt and uncle--and I was at her side.

"May I have the pleasure of seeing you home?"

She managed a timid "Certainly." her hand fluttered within my arm, and
my heart bounded forward like a freed race-horse. We walked!

Now it had been my occupation at quiet moments to devise conversation
against the time of this precise miracle. I had dreamt that it might
come to pass, even as it did, and I knew that talk for it should be
stored safely away. This talk had been the coinage of my leisure. As we
walked I would say, lightly,--"Do you like it here as well as you did
back East?"--or, still better, as sounding more chatty,--"How do you
like it here?"--an easy, masterful pause--"as well as you did back
East?" A thousand times had I rehearsed the inflections until they were
perfect. And now the time was come.

Whether I spoke at all or not until we reached her gate I have never
known. Dimly in my memory is a suggestion that when we passed Uncle
Jerry Honeycutt, I confided to her that he sent to Chicago for his
ear-trumpet and that it cost twelve dollars. If I did this, she must
have made a suitable response, though I retain nothing of it.

I only know that the sky was full of flaming meteors, that golden star
dust rained upon us from an applauding heaven, that the earth rocked
gently as we trod upon it.

Down the wonderful street we went, a strange street shimmering in mystic
light--and then I was opening her gate. I, afterward, decided that
surely at this moment, with the gate between us, I would have
remembered--superbly would I have said, "How do you like it here?--as
well as you did back East?"

But, two staring boys passed us, and one of them spok