Finally she pulled some sprigs of mint from the bank under the keeping-room windows, and she shut the house door, and stuck them carefully under the sill. Then she went on down the road, and soon she met Abel Perkins. He stood about, and took off his hat in a way he had learned in college, and Lydia courtesied gravely. Abel was considerably younger than she, and she had always had a certain disdain for him, in spite of his being the squire’s son. Still it was quite evident that he humbly admired her, and some deference was due him for that. So when he asked humbly if he might walk with her a way, she said yes, and they went on together. Alder-trees, faintly sweet in a pale mist of bloom, stood beside the road; there were distant peals of laughter, tinklings of cow bells, and a hubbub of nestward birds. Lydia stepped proudly along beside the little anxiously smiling squire’s son; her beautiful face looked out of her yellow blanket as if it were a frame of gold. Abel Perkins kept glancing up at her and blushing. “If you had told me that you didn’t want me to go to Abraham White’s, I wouldn’t have gone, Lydia,” he said, after a while. “I don’t approve of any such goings on,” Lydia returned, severely. “I don’t know as they are very becoming,” said Abel Perkins. They sauntered on slowly. The sunset light lay in red-gold patches on the dusty road, some elm-trees ahead swayed in a mystical, rosy, smokelike incense. Presently at the right of the road showed the red walls of Aunt Nabby Keith’s house out of a thicket of purple-topped lilac-bushes. Freelove suddenly appeared in the road. When he saw Lydia he started, then went on with a jauntier swing. He scarcely nodded as he went by. Lydia held her head like a statue. “Is he huffy?” whispered Abel. “I don’t know and I don’t care,” replied Lydia, coldly. But in a second she faced about. “I must go home,” said she. “It is getting damp.” Abel went obediently at her side. Freelove was still visible in the road ahead. Lydia talked and laughed very loud, but he did not turn his head, although he must have heard. When they reached the Hersey house, Lydia turned promptly into the yard. “Good-night, Abel,” she called, loudly. And Abel Perkins responded with rueful sweetness, for he had thought to be asked in, and went on down the road in Freelove’s tracks. Lydia watched him out of sight. She knew he would meet Freelove at the village store, if he did not overtake him. She did not go into the house and disturb the mint on the door-sill. She waited a few minutes, then she also went on a little way to the next house, where lived a young woman mate of hers. She went in and stayed until nearly nine o’clock, and the two girls talked over Deborah Belcher’s wedding, but not a word did Lydia say about her quarrel with Freelove.