"You wouldn't say so, if you knew mamma as well as Kit and I do," returned Jessie, laughing. "I shan't have an easy time, when I try to persuade her to let me carry out my plan. She wouldn't be any more horrified if I wanted to be a farmer and plant my own potatoes." "What will Florence be, I wonder," said Polly. "It would have to be something very pretty and dainty, or it would never suit her." "Florence? Her future is all cut out," said Jean. "Didn't Mrs. Hapgood tell it, last Hallowe'en, a devoted husband and a beautiful home? She'll have everything she can possibly want, and she'll keep it all in apple pie order, and she and her husband will do nothing but bill and coo all day long." "I don't believe it," said Molly, laughing at the sentimental picture which Jean had called up. "I think Florence has more to her than all that." "What more can she want?" asked Katharine. "If she is a perfect wife in a happy home, there isn't anything much better for any woman." "But it's getting dark, and I must go," said Polly, as she rose. "Come, Jean; mamma will think I am lost. Good night, girls." In spite of their assurances that they were not at all timid, Alan insisted on going with the girls; so they stopped to speak to Mrs. Adams, then walked on together as far as Jean's gate, where they lingered, talking, for a minute or two. "Come in now, Alan," said Polly, as they reached her house again; "it's early, really, and Jerusalem's out there on the piazza, all alone. You know she always likes to see you." Alan hesitated for a moment, but the last fading light of the warm June day was too tempting, and he went in. Mrs. Adams rose from her piazza chair to meet them, and stepped forward into the faint light which shone out through the closely drawn shade of the parlor window. "Yes, it is pleasant out here," she answered Polly; "but if you children are going to sit outside, you must have some wraps, for it is quite cool. Polly dear, just run in to get a shawl to put on, and bring the afghan to tuck around Alan. It's on the parlor sofa." Polly vanished through the open door. When she came back, she was laughing. "Why didn't you tell me they were in there, Jerusalem?" she asked, as she tossed the afghan to Alan, and then settled herself on a sweet-grass mat at her mother's feet. "Aunt Jane is reading aloud a report of something or other, and Mr. Baxter looks so bored. He yawned like a chasm when I went in." "Perhaps you disturbed him in the middle of a nap," suggested Alan. "Maybe I did. I don't blame him for getting sleepy," responded Polly pityingly. "It all seemed to be about convict labor and penal servitude and such things. I shouldn't wonder if something was the matter in Russia." Then they were silent, watching the lazy shadows from the full moon creep over the lawn, till there came a footstep on the walk and a voice called,-- "So you are all making the most of the moonlight, are you?"