It appeared that Bije did not care if twenty Miss Butes were looking at him, though one was enough to frighten the crows. Betsy was to put on her bunnit that minute, and come along with him. Door locked? What did that matter, he should like to know? He should laugh if she was to be kept shet up there like a mouse in a trap. Send her home to her stepmother? He'd like to see them try it, that was all. Never mind the things! Come right along! She'd ben cryin'! He'd like to get hold of them as made her cry. There'd be _some_ cryin' round, but it wouldn't be hers. Come! Why didn't Betsy come? They'd take the cows out to pasture this once more,--he didn't want the dumb critters to suffer, and 't wasn't likely the old cats could get any help before night,--and then they'd go. Go where? Now Betsy knew that well enough. To Friar Laurence, of course (Bije called him parson instead of friar, and he spelled his name with a _w_ instead of a _u_, but these are mere trifles of detail), to get married. Where else should they go? Wasn't she his Betsy, his own girl? Did she think she was goin' to stay there and be hectored, while he was round? Parson Lawrence was to home, Bije saw him only last night. Now could she climb down that grape-vine? He reckoned she could, and he'd be standin' ready to catch her if her foot should slip. "Oh, Bije! you take my breath away, you're so dretful speedy. Why, I can't--no way in the world. What--where should I go then, if--if we did--do what you say? Not that I can--with no clo'es but what I've got on. The idea!" "Go? go home, of course, to mother's. Won't she be glad to see ye? Won't Delilah half eat ye up, she'll be so pleased? That's all you know, Betsy. And the help you'll be, and me too! Mother was dretful onreconciled to my goin' away, but I felt to go and see something of the world. And now I've seen all I want to, and I'm good and ready to go home, Betsy; but not alone." How silver-sweet, indeed, sound lovers' tongues by night! But no sweeter than now in the early morning, when all the world was as young and fresh as Betsy, and as full of love and tenderness. In truth, it was the hour for a bridal. The air was full of bridal-veils: floating wreaths of silver fog that hung soft on the trees, and shimmered against the hill-sides, and here and there began to soften into golden and rosy tints as the light strengthened. They were all over the grass, too, these bridal-tokens, in tiny webs of purest spun-silver, diamond-set. A carpet of pearls was spread for Betsy's little feet, and she would never cry out, as slug-a-bed maidens do, if the pearls and diamonds wetted her shoes. Is the bride ready? "Red as a rose is she. Nodding their heads before her goes The merry minstrelsy." Hark to them now! They are tuning their instruments in every branch of the elm-tree, cheep, twitter, trill; and now they burst out in a triumphal chorus of song:-- "O Hymen, Hymenæe!"