"Betty, you're a witch," he declared at last. "I've been clattering away here like a watchman's rattle. You can't be interested in all this stuff about my cart-tail speeches for honest city government." "But I am interested, decidedly. I like to hear about men that do something--they're a novelty." Her frank smile warmed him. "I know there are enough worthless men in the world to make the useful ones count all the more. 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' That's as true in Maryland as anywhere." "You're a worldly-wise small person." "Oh, I read and think a little, Mr. Bob White." She nodded her head at him until the blonde braid danced. After supper Uncle Landis abruptly vanished. Aunty Landis lingered in the dining-room on the plea of clearing off the supper things--in point of fact, Fessenden saw her no more that night. Betty led the way to a couple of steamer-chairs at a corner of the porch. The breeze had freshened a little, and he tucked her knitted scarf about her shoulders with a care not altogether fatherly. "Thank you, Bob White. You're very kind." "Who wouldn't be kind to you, Betty? Look there! Over the top of the hill. Even the stars are peeping out to see if you're comfortable." She gave her little crowing laugh. "What a poet! I always think of Emerson's verse about the stars. Do you remember it? "Over our heads are the maple buds, And over the maple buds is the moon; And over the moon are the starry studs That drop from the angel's shoon." "Where did you learn Emerson?" "I had a teacher who liked him." "Did any one ever tell you that you talk as a prima donna ought to talk, but never does--'soft, gentle, and low'?" "Is that a compliment?" "Certainly. Perhaps you sing." "I'll get my guitar." She flashed into the house and back again. The starlight enabled him to see her indistinctly as she tightened the keys of a small guitar. "I like this song," she explained. "It was written by Fessenden, you know." "By whom?" "Thomas Fessenden, _the_ Fessenden, the man who----" "Oh, of course." To hear himself thus referred to, to hear one of his own casual songs launched from the lips of a country girl in the splendor of a Maryland night, was a novel experience even for Fessenden. He realized with amusement that his identity was wholly unknown to Betty, that capricious young person not having allowed him as yet to mention his own name. She sang, her eyes laughing upon him as her lips rounded to the whistle of the quail in the refrain. "At morn when first the rosy gleam Of rising sun proclaimed the day, There reached me, through my last sweet dream, This oft-repeated lay: (Too sweet for cry, Too brief for song, 'Twas borne along The reddening sky)