There was such a mist of green that the earth seemed to be breathing it out in swirls and billows. It was impossible to say whether there were more riot and surge in the budding ground, or in the heavens, where clouds flew swiftly. The birds were singing, all kinds together, in a tumultuous harmony. Jerry felt light-headed with the wonder of it; but Marietta had an ache at her heart, she did not know why, though she was used to that kind of thing when the outside world struck her as being full of tremulous appeals without any answers. Though Jerry had the reins in his hands, he did not go. Instead, he continued looking at her standing there in her freshness of good health and the candor of her gaze that seemed to him, next to his mother's face, the kindest thing he had ever known. The blue of her eyes and the blue of her dress matched each other in a lovely way. He felt that he had something to say to her, but he could not remember what it was. Suddenly a robin on the fence burst into adjurations of a robust sort, and Marietta, without meaning to, spoke. She had always said since her childhood that a robin bewitched her--he was so happy and so pert. "Jerry," said she, "what if I should get my hat and ride with you as far as Ferny Woods?" "So do," said Jerry, with a perfect cordiality. "So do." "It's a pretty day," Marietta asserted again; but he cut her short, advising her to get ready, and she ran in, a flush on her cheeks and lightness in her step. When she came out she had made no conventional preparations for a drive. She had only pinned on her broad black hat and taken off her apron. She carried a little oblong basket with a cover, and this she set carefully in the back of the wagon, with the lilies. Jerry alighted gallantly to help her in, and when he had started up the horse it was Marietta who began speaking. Usually she was rather silent, following Jerry's lead, but to-day the warmth and beauty and song had liberated something in her spirit, and she had to talk back to the talking earth. "You know Ferny Woods are much as a mile this side of the Moodys'," she was saying. "You can just leave me there, and then you can go along and make your call." "It seems pretty mean not to take you with me," Jerry offered haltingly. Yet he knew, as she did, that he had no desire to take her. This was his own sacred pilgrimage. "Oh, I wouldn't go for anything," she answered eagerly. "You've looked forward to it so long--well, not exactly that, for you didn't know she was coming. But it means a good deal to you. And I don't care a mite. I truly don't, not a mite." Jerry flicked at the horse's ears and spoke out of his maze of dreamy anticipation. "Seems if I should know her the minute I put eyes on her." "Well, I guess you will," she encouraged him. "Maybe she's the only boarder they've got, so far." "No, no, I don't mean that. Seems if I knew exactly how she ought to look."