With all her pride in her family and ambition for her brother May had a romantic side to her character. Had she liked Hetty less, she would yet have pledged her support to the lover. She told him this while they strolled homeward, and then around and around the graveled drive in front of the Gilchrist portico, and had, in return, the full story of his passion. “When I marry, my wife will have all there is of me,” he had said, long ago, to his sister. He reminded her of it to-night. “She is not a brilliant society woman. Not beautiful, perhaps. I am not a competent judge of that at this date. She has not the prestige of wealth or station. But she is my counterpart.” He always returned to that. When his sister had gone into the house he tarried on the lawn with his cigar. What freshness the fierce sun had left to the air was all to be found out of doors. As the gray swathes continued to smother the light out of the moon the heat became more oppressive. The gravel walks were hot to his feet; the bricks of the house radiated caloric. With a half-laugh at the whim, he entered the now silent and darkened dwelling, sought and procured a carriage rug, and pulling the door shut after him, whistled for Thor, and retraced his steps to the orchard. He spread the rug upon the grass kept cool by the down-leaning branches of the arbor and cast himself upon it. He meant to make a night of it. “I have camped out, many a July night, in far less luxurious quarters,” he muttered. “And this place is sacred.” When the mosquitoes began to hum in his ears, he lighted another cigar. He was the more glad to do it, as he fancied, once in a while, that the young apples or the wilting leaves had a peculiar and not pleasant odor, as of some gum or essence, that hung long in the atmosphere. He had noticed it when he pulled down a branch to get the spray he had torn apart, while May talked. The air was full of foreign scents to-night, and this might be an olfactory imagination. As twelve o’clock struck from the nearest church spire, he was staring into the formless shadows overhead and living over the apple-blossom week, the symphony in pink and white. The young robins were full fledged and had flitted from the parent nest. The young hope, born of what stood with him for all the poetry of his six-and-twenty years of life, spread strong wings toward a future he was not to enjoy alone. Thor was uneasy. He should have found his share of the rug laid upon elastic turf as comfortable as the mat on the piazza floor, which was his usual bed, yet he arose to his haunches, once and again, and, although at his master’s touch or word, he lay down obediently, the outline of his big head, as March could make it out in the gloom, was alert. “What is it, old boy?” said he presently. “What is going on?” Thor whined and beat the ground with his tail, both tentatively, as asking information in return.