"It was a lovely July night, with June not quite out of the world yet. There was that after-dark light in the sky that makes you feel that the sky is going to stay lit up behind and shining through all night, as if the time was so beautiful that celestial beings must be staying awake to watch it, and to keep the sky lit and turned down low.... We walked along the Plank Road pretty still, because I guessed how Insley's own thoughts was conversation enough for him; but when we got a ways down, he kind of reached out with his mind for something and me being near by, his mind clutched at me. "'What if it _is_ so, Miss Marsh?' he says. 'What if the only thing for us to do is to tend to personal morality and an occasional lift to an under dog or two--"if he deserves it." What if that's all--they meant us to do?' "It's awful hard giving a reason for your chief notions. It's like describing a rose by the tape-measure. "'Shucks!' I says only. 'Look up at the stars. I don't believe it.' "He laughed a little, and he did look up at them, but still I knew how he felt. And even the stars that night looked awful detached and able to take care of themselves. And they were a-shining down on the Plank Road that would get to be Daphne Street and go about its business of leading to private homes--_private_ homes. The village, that little cluster of lights ahead there, seemed just shutting anybody else out, going its own way, kind of mocking anybody for any idea of getting really inside it. It was plain enough that Insley had nothing to hope for from Alex Proudfit. And Alex's serene sureness that Nature needed nobody to help, his real self-satisfied looking on at processes which no man could really hurry up--my, but they made you feel cheap, and too many of yourself, and like none of you had a license to take a-hold. For a second I caught myself wondering. Maybe Nature--stars and streets and processes--_could_ work it out without us. "Something come against my foot. I pushed at it, and then bent over and touched it. It was warm and yieldy, and I lifted it up. And it was a puppy that wriggled its body unbelievable and flopped on to my arm its inch and a quarter of tail. "'Look at,' I says to Insley, which, of course, he couldn't do; but I put the little thing over into his hands. "'Well, little brother,' says he. 'Running away?'