eated in
good order."

"You needn't have hated me so. You hadn't really seen me."

"I saw enough. I saw your cheek and one ear and the color of your hair.
Take care, playmate, you mustn't do that."

"What?"

"You mustn't say I hated you. You know it wasn't hate."

Some daring prompted her to ask, "What was it, then?" but she folded her
hands and crossed her feet in great contentment and was still.

"Tell me things," she heard him saying.

"What things? About the house up there? About grannie? About Peter?"

"No, no. I know all about grannie and Peter. Tell me things I never
could know unless we were here in the playhouse, in the dark."

Her mind went off, at that, to the wonder of it. She was here in strange
circumstances, and of all the occurrences of her life, it seemed the
most natural. Immediately she had the warmest curiosity, the desire that
he should talk inordinately and tell her all the things he had done
to-day, yesterday, all the days.

"You tell," she said. "Begin at the beginning, and tell me about your
life."

"Why, playmate!" His voice had even a sorrowful reproach. "There's
nothing in it. Nothing at all. I have only dug in the ground and made
things grow."

"What people have you known?"

"Grannie."

"She isn't people."

"She's my people. She's all there is, except Peter, and he hasn't been
here."

Something like jealousy possessed her. She was stung by her own
ignorance.

"But there are lots of years when we didn't meet," she said.

"Lots of them. But I don't care anything about them. I told you so the
other night."

"Don't you care about mine?"

"Not a bit."

She was lightheaded with the joy of it. There were things she need not
tell him.

"Not the years before we met?" Then because she was a woman, she had to
spoil the cup. "Nor the years after I go away?"

"No, not the years when you've gone away. You can't take this night with
you, nor the other night."

He had hurt her.

"That's enough, then--a memory."

Osmond laughed a little. It was a tender sound, as if he might scold
her, but not meaning it.

"You mustn't be naughty," he said. "There's nothing naughtier in a
playhouse than saying what isn't true. You know if you go away you'll
come back again. You can't help it. It may be a long time first. You
were twenty-five years in coming this time. But you'll have to come. You
know that, don't you?"

"Yes," she said gravely, "I know that." Then the memory of her wa