The first week in July, John, passing the Neal home, was surprised to see Dorothy Durrett standing on the porch. She had arrived the day before. He was glad to learn that she expected to spend the summer with her aunt. They had a pleasant chat, for the most part, about their parties of the summer of two years before. Dorothy was now nearly twenty-one and in appearance even more attractive than when he had first known her. He told her of Howard Bradford's contemplated visit, and they began formulating plans for the summer. "You have not seen our house since it was remodeled according to Mr. Bradford's suggestion, nor have you seen my mother; come with me now. I am thinking of giving a dance in honor of our guest. Three rooms of the lower floor are so arranged that they can be made into one, giving us plenty of room to dance. Will you please help me out?" "Certainly I will, John. You used to say we were meant to help each other. Let me get a hat and tell Aunt Anna where I am going." "How the place is improved! The grounds were always delightful; now the whole is toned and in concord; a very delightful picture. There is your mother at the door waiting for her John. The woman who takes you off her hands gets an armload of responsibility. A man always compares his wife with his mother and you, John, will expect your wife to love and mother you as she has done." "Oh, Dorothy! I am glad to see you! I did not know you in the start, or John, either. I do not see so well and I did not expect to see John with a woman. When did you come? You are even more attractive than when you were here two years ago. John has acted like an old man since then. I wish some nice girl would marry him." "Oh, John and I understand each other; we could be the best of friends, but never lovers. I will have to find him a good wife, else in his inexperience, with his head buried in a book, he may make a mistake. I know the very girl--Rosamond Clay, of Madison County; she visited me last winter. I shall have my aunt ask her to visit us while I am with her. Then I shall assign John to her and depend on Mr. Bradford or Mr. Duffield to entertain me. Watch what a match-maker I am, Mrs. Cornwall. Let us go through the house and then into the garden. My aunt insisted that I hurry back. What a delightful place for your dance! We can decorate with hydrangeas and golden glow. John, the garden looks just the same as it did that Sunday afternoon two years ago when we sat on this same bench under the arbor of ripening grapes and I told you my dream of the humming birds. For a while I regretted having done so, knowing that you saw too deeply into my heart and was not wholly satisfied with the vision. What you saw was, in a way, the soul of Dorothy. Now I am glad I told it. We would never have been real happy, John, though we were beginning to think so. I hope before I marry the one I love will tell me even his dreams; they sometimes lift the curtain to the inner self. I must go now."