“It is a week old, already!” Hester pouted, “and I said never a word to Mrs. Gilchrist yesterday. ‘The Seasons’”—the _mot de famille_ at the Gilchrists’ for brother and sister—“are our only _own_ friends, mamma. You can trust them to hold their tongues!” “What seems a great event to us will be small to them,” cautioned Mrs. Wayt—then gave Hester her way. Nine o’clock saw her in Homer’s charge on the orchard road, the shortest, as it was the most secluded, to the Gilchrist place. “Where _are_ you taking me, Tony?” she aroused from a happy, expectant reverie to ask, midway. The aftermath of the June mowing was tall by now, and the chair was almost hidden in it. “Now—I don’ keer fur to take ye near that big tree. ’Taint wholesome nor proper!” grunted the charioteer. He was slightly afraid of the testy little damsel, and took on doughty airs at times to disprove the fact. “We’ll soon git inter the path agi’n.” “But I won’t stand this!” cried Hester, irate. “Go back to the path! Not wholesome! not proper! What do you mean!” “Now—I seen the light there oftener’n anywheres else”—Homer was beginning, when they were hailed by a well-known voice. “What are you doing over there?” called March. “Swimming for our lives,” returned Hester. “Won’t you dive, and drag me out by the hair of my head?” Her tone was tremulous with delight. As he took her hand, it quivered like a poplar leaf in his large, cordial grasp. He was fond of Hester on her own account, fonder of her because he linked her with Hetty. He had strolled down the street with his cigar after giving his mother a detailed account of the pleasure making of the last three weeks. He felt the heat inland to be oppressive after the surf breeze. His mother was glad that his saunter was not in the direction of the parsonage. She knew nothing of the short cut from the back street, or with what ease an athlete of six-and-twenty could vault a five-barred fence. Besides, was not her boy a cured and discharged patient! The meeting with Hester, if not the best thing he had hoped for, was so much better than a solitary ramble in dream-haunted grounds that he greeted her joyously. It was not the first time the idea had come to him of making a confidante of the keen-witted, deep-hearted child, but it suddenly took the shape of determination. “Going to see May!” He echoed her reply to his next question. “She is tired out, and has gone to her room by this. She means to claim you for the whole of to-morrow. Give me a little chat in our arbor instead, and I will take you home. I have not seen you for an age, and I have something very interesting to me and important to you, to say to you.” She laughed up in his face in sheer pleasure. “And I have something particularly interesting to me, and not important to you, to tell in return. We have an event in our family—an agreeable happening as to results, although it comes by a dark and crooked road—or so mamma persists in saying.”