Then she told him about her lone visit to this spot a year before, and how it affected her. "Do you know," she explained, "I was terribly scared, and I imagined I heard ghostly footsteps all around here, and when I reached home I was as pale as a ghost myself." "It was a foolish thing to do," he said, "and a silly promise for me to exact." "I should have kept it just the same," was her answer, "as long as I lived." At noon he rebuilt the little lattice table, and after the dainty dinner was disposed of, they gathered flowers, picked wintergreen, wove wreaths for each other's hats and talked silly nothings for hours, and enjoyed it, too, as lovers will. Late in the afternoon, when tired of this, he arranged the carriage robe and cushions beside the rock and asked her to sit beside him. It was a preliminary to some serious utterance, she felt, for he at once remarked: "Liddy, I've something to tell you." She looked at him for a moment, while a smile crept into her face, and then said: "Now, Charlie, if you have any more startling or painful things to tell me, don't bring me up here first, or I shall always dread to come." "Was my confession of love, made here, painful?" he remarked. "Of course not," she answered, "nor startling, either, for, as I told you, I knew that was coming. But the other part of it nearly broke my heart. You must have thought me silly!" How earnestly, and in what manner he assured her she did not act silly on that occasion, but was the sweetest and dearest girl that ever lived, need not be specified. When that little episode was over and she had adjusted her hat, she said: "Now tell me your story, Charlie." "Well," he replied, "one night nearly two years ago I was on picket duty, and I made the acquaintance of a young fellow by the name of Frank Pullen, who belonged to a Maine regiment. We kept up an acquaintance for two months and in that time became very good friends. We were in much the same state of mind, for he, too, had a waiting sweetheart at home, and when we separated we each promised to write to the other, if we lived to do so. His father is a retired sea captain, and well-to-do, and lives in a little out-of-the-way place in Maine. A month ago I received a letter from Frank and an urgent invitation to visit him, and I've promised to do so." "That's nice," said Liddy regretfully, "to be told I am to be left alone all summer! The next time you ask me up here I shall say: 'Tell me the bad news first!'" "Liddy," he replied seriously, "it's not for a pleasure trip that I am going. He knows how I am situated and a good deal about my hopes and plans, and he has promised to help me." She was silent, for this opened a new field of conjecture and for a long time she mused upon it, and at last said: "I do not see how his assistance will help matters much, do you?"