umes that escorted her brook toward the level. The line dwindled
as the shorn pollards gave up their withes to bind the vines to the dwarf
maples. She felt the miles between herself and Crocker lessening, and (at
rare moments) her scruples ready to be garnered for some sweet and
ill-defined but surely serviceable use. But she would not have been Emma
Verplanck if the manner of her not impossible surrender had not troubled
her more than the act itself. Any lack of tact on the part of the
husbandman might still spoil things. She had a whimsical sense that any
one of the flaming willows might refuse its contribution to the vineyard
should the pruner approach with anything short of a persuasive "_con
permesso_."

Crocker's "by your leave" was so far from persuasive that it left her
with a panicky desire to run away--again a new sensation. He wrote:

"DEAR EMMA--

"We have had an endless year to think it over, and the only change on my
side is that I need you more than ever. I will go away for real reasons,
for your reasons, but for no others. If it is only their talk that
separates us, their talk has had twelve good months and shall have no
more. I must see you. May I come tomorrow at the old hour?

"As always yours,

"MORTON CROCKER."

Something between wrath and dismay was the result of this challenge. She
sat down to answer him according to his impudence, and the words would
not come. The greatness of the required sacrifice came over her and
therewith the desire to temporise. The voice of many Knickerbocker
ancestresses spoke in her, and between herself and a real emergency she
interposed the impenetrable buckler of a conventionality. She wrote:

"PENSIOIN SCHALCK, Bad Weisstein, Austrian Tyrol.

"MY DEAR CROCKER--

"It would be pleasant to see you and talk over your trip, but you see by
this address it is for the present impossible. As always,

"Cordially yours,

"EMMA VERPLANCK."

When Crocker found Emma's valley as effectually barred as if a battery
guarded the approaches, he gave way to a deep resentment. Instinctively
hating anything like a trick, to be tricked by Emma at this point was
intolerable. His gloom was such that he confided to the malicious Harwood
a profound disgust with the irreality of the life Italianate. The
_podere_ should be sold as soon as it could be put in order. Such
pictures as the Italian Government coveted, it should keep, the rest
should go to the Museum at Boston. He himself