He was obliged to leave it there, since he had no more than the time to catch his train for New York. It was, however, the sense of pride and honor that calmed my nerves when Mrs. Rossiter asked me to take little Gladys to see her grandfather in the afternoon. I had done it from time to time all through the summer, but not since Hugh had declared his love for me. If I went now, I reasoned, it would have to be on a new footing; and if it was on a new footing something might come of the visit in spite of my fears. We started a little after three, as Gladys had to be back in time for her early supper and bed. Chips, the wire-haired terrier, was nominally at our heels, but actually nosing the shrubbery in front of us, or scouring the lawns on our right with a challenging bark to any of his kind who might be within earshot to come down and contest our passage. "_Qu'il est drôle, ce Chips! N'est-ce-pas, mademoiselle?_" Gladys would exclaim from time to time, to which I would make some suitable and instructive rejoinder. Her hand was in mine; her eyes as they laughed up at me were of the color of the blue convolvulus. In her little smocked liberty silk, with a leghorn hat trimmed with a wreath of tiny roses, she made me yearn for that bassinet between which and myself there were such stormy seas to cross. Everything was to be up to me. That was the great solemnity from which my mind couldn't get away. I was to be the David to confront Goliath, without so much as a sling or a stone. What I was to do, and how I was to do it, I knew no more than I knew of commanding an army. I could only take my stand on the maxim of which I was making a foundation-stone. I went so far as to believe that if I did right more right would unfold itself. It would be like following a trail through a difficult wood, a trail of which you observe all the notches and steps and signs, sometimes with misgivings, often with the fear that you're astray, but on which a moment arrives when you see with delight that you're coming out to the clearing. So I argued as I prattled with Gladys of such things as were in sight, of ships and lobster-pots and little dogs, giving her a new word as occasion served, and trying to keep my mind from terrors and remote anticipations.