John regretfully. "I wish t' we could set up
for ourselves right away this summer. I ain't got much ahead, but I
can work well as anybody, an' now I'm out o' my time."

"She's a nice, modest, pretty girl. I thought she liked you, John,"
said the old aunt. "I saw her over to your mother's, last day I was
there. Well, I expect you'll be happy."

"Certain," said John, turning to look at her affectionately, surprised
by this outspokenness and lack of embarrassment between them. "Thank
you, aunt," he said simply; "you're a real good friend to me;" and he
looked away again hastily, and blushed a fine scarlet over his
sun-browned face. "She's coming over to spend the day with the girls,"
he added. "Mother thought of it. You don't get over to see us very
often."

Mrs. Bickford smiled approvingly. John's mother looked for her good
opinion, no doubt, but it was very proper for John to have told his
prospects himself, and in such a pretty way. There was no
shilly-shallying about the boy.

"My gracious!" said John suddenly. "I'd like to have drove right by
the burying-ground. I forgot we wanted to stop."

Strange as it may appear, Mrs. Bickford herself had not noticed the
burying-ground, either, in her excitement and pleasure; now she felt
distressed and responsible again, and showed it in her face at once.
The young man leaped lightly to the ground, and reached for the
flowers.

"Here, you just let me run up with 'em," he said kindly. "'T is hot in
the sun to-day, an' you'll mind it risin' the hill. We'll stop as I
fetch you back to-night, and you can go up comfortable an' walk the
yard after sundown when it's cool, an' stay as long as you're a mind
to. You seem sort of tired, aunt."

"I don't know but what I will let you carry 'em," said Mrs. Bickford
slowly.

To leave the matter of the rose in the hands of fate seemed weakness
and cowardice, but there was not a moment for consideration. John was
a smiling fate, and his proposition was a great relief. She watched
him go away with a terrible inward shaking, and sinking of pride. She
had held the flowers with so firm a grasp that her hands felt weak and
numb, and as she leaned back and shut her eyes she was afraid to open
them again at first for fear of knowing the bouquets apart even at
that distance, and giving instructions which she might regret. With a
sudden impulse she called John once or twice eagerly; but her voice
had a thin and piping sound, and the meditative