g over
switches, Eleanor said, "I've come out here four times a week for four
years, to Fern Hill."

And Maurice said: "Well, _that's_ over! No more school-teaching for
you!"

She smiled, then sighed. "I'll miss my little people," she said.

But except for that they were silent. When they left the car, he led the
way across a meadow to the bank of the river; there they sat down under
the locust, and he kissed her, quietly; then, for a while, still dumb
with the wonder of themselves, they watched the sky, and the sailing
white clouds, and the river--flowing--flowing; and each other.

"Fifty-four minutes," he had said....

So they sat there and planned for the endless future--the "fifty-four
years."

"When we have our golden wedding," he said, "we shall come back here,
and sit under this tree--" He paused; he would be--let's see: nineteen,
plus fifty, makes sixty-nine. He did not go farther with his mental
arithmetic, and say thirty-nine plus fifty; he was thinking only of
himself, not of her. In fifty years he would be, he told himself, an old
man.

And what would happen in all these fifty golden years? "You know, long
before that time, perhaps it won't be--just us?" he said.

The color leaped to her face; she nodded, finding no words in which to
expand that joyous "perhaps," which touched the quick in her. Instantly
that sum in addition which he had not essayed in his own mind, became
unimportant in hers. What difference did the twenty severing years make,
after all? Her heart rose with a bound--she had a quick vision of a
little head against her bosom! But she could not put it into words. She
only challenged, him:

"I am not clever like you. Do you think you can love a stupid person for
fifty years?"

"For a thousand years!--but you're not stupid."

She looked doubtful; then went on confessing: "Auntie says I'm a dummy,
because I don't talk very much. And I'm awfully timid. And she says I'm
jealous."

"You don't talk because you're always thinking; that's one of the most
fascinating things about you, Eleanor,--you keep me wondering what on
earth you're thinking about. It's the mystery of you that gets me! And
if you're 'timid'--well, so long as you're not afraid of me, the more
scared you are, the better I like it. A man," said Maurice, "likes to
feel that he protects his--his wife." He paused and repeated the glowing
word ... "his wife!" For a moment he could not go on with their careless
talk; then h