But I was not to be depressed by Oona's superstitions this bright spring morning, so I went off laughing, and left her shaking her old head in its snowy cap-frills. The day passed without event, and it was late afternoon. Esther was still out, and I had thought I would go a little way to meet her, so after Aline had wrapped me up in a soft old Indian cashmere shawl, and enjoined on me not to go too far, I started off down the avenue. I went farther, perhaps, than I intended, for I expected Esther to come in sight at every turn. Anyhow all at once I felt a little tired, and so sat down on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree to wait for her. The evening was rosy now, and translucent yellow, and palest green, and Brandon had flushed rosy pink, and was wearing the evening star in his hair. "If she doesn't come soon," said I, "I must turn back." And just at that moment I heard, in the silence, wheels and the trotting of a horse's hoofs on the road. The sound was coming nearer every minute, and was sufficient of a novelty to attract my attention, for, as I have said before, the road to Brandon led nowhere but to Brandon, the only exit from it, after Brandon gates, being a horrible rutty boreen, too narrow for anything but the smallest donkey-cart. "Hullo!" said I to myself--I have learnt slang from the boys, you see--"Oona's stranger, for a ducat!" and I began to feel rather excited. With the sensitive hearing of a country-girl, I could follow the sound of the car through its many windings and turnings, and could even catch the murmur of voices when the turning was towards Brandon, and not away from it, or in a hollow. Presently there was a pause, and I knew the car had stopped at the gate, and that the driver was leading his horse through, for our last lodge-keeper, Larry Hefferman, had been dead two years, and we had not filled his place. Then I heard the car coming on towards me up the avenue. I listened in strained expectancy, still keeping my place on the log. It came nearer and nearer. Then it turned on to the long straight bit at the other end of which I was sitting. There was one person on it besides the driver--a tall man, much muffled, despite the clemency of the April evening. As they came near me I saw him lean across and speak to the driver. Then the car stopped and he alighted slowly and painfully, and, taking a bag from the seat, came on to where I was sitting, while the car turned round and drove slowly off. The man came up to me and stopped. I could scarcely see his face, for the muffling and the soft hat. But there was something familiar about it, and yet unfamiliar, which made me jump up, trembling slightly. "Why, it is little Hilda!" said the man, and with the sound of his voice uncertainty vanished. "Oh, Pierce," I cried, "Pierce! How glad Aline will be!" And then I added, nearly in the same breath: