There was to be an exhibition
in the white schoolhouse, in the river district, and Frank had written,
urging her to come, and asking that Aunt Barbara should be left
behind--"the old maid," he sometimes called her to his cousin, thinking
it sounded smart and manlike. Aunt Barbara had stayed at home from
choice, sending her niece in charge of Susie Granger's mother; but the
long walk home, after the exercises were over, the lingering, loitering
walk across the causeway, where the fog was riding so damply, the
stopping on the bridge, and looking down into the deep, dark water,
where the stars were reflected so brightly, the slow climbing of the
depot hill, and the long talk by the gate beneath the elms, whose long
arms began to drop great drops of dew on Ethie's head ere the interview
was ended--all this had been experienced with Frank, whose arm was
around the young girl's waist, and whose hand was clasping hers, as with
boyish pride and a laughable effort to seem manly, he talked of "our
engagement," and even leaped forward in fancy to the time "when we
are married."
All this came back to Ethelyn, and she seemed to feel again the breath
of the September night, and see through the clustering branches the
flashing light waiting for her in the dear old room in Chicopee.
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