When he had made his preparations for the glad day's adventure and stepped out on the front porch, his father had gone to the bank, his mother was in the kitchen. Elinor was sitting on the top step. Her back was turned. Her sharp little elbows rested on her knees and her face was propped in her palms. Her figure again suggested a crumpled, purple morning-glory--fragile, not threatened by any human violence but imperilled by nature. She did not look around as he stepped out or move as he passed down. He felt a new wish to say something pleasant but could not quite so conquer himself. As he laid his hand on the yard gate, he was stopped by these words, reaching his ears from the porch: "Take me with you!" He could not believe his ears. Could this be Elinor, his tease, his torment? This wounded appeal, timid pleading--could it proceed from Elinor? He was thrown off his balance and too surprised to act. The words were repeated more beseechingly, wistfully: "Take me with you, will you, Webster?" For now that she had given herself away to him, he might as well see everything: that at last she was openly begging that she be admitted to a share in his plans and pleasures, that he no longer disdain to play with her. He spoke with rough embarrassment over his shoulder: "You can't go today. Nobody can go today. I'm going miles out into the country to the woods." "But some day will you take me over into the woods yonder?" After a while he turned toward her: "Yes, I will." "Thank you very much. Thank you very much, indeed, Webster!" The tide of feeling began to rush toward her: "There are some wild violets over there, Elinor, wild blue violets and wild white violets--thick beds of them in the shade." "Oh, how lovely!" She clasped her hands and knotted them tensely under her chin and kept her eyes fixed more hopefully on him. "There is a flock of the funniest little fairies dancing under one of the big forest trees, each carrying the queerest little green parasol." "How perfectly, perfectly lovely!" "And I found one little cedar tree. If they'll let us, I'll dig it up and bring it home and plant it in the front yard. It will be your own cedar tree, Elinor." "Oh, Webster! Could anything be more lovely of you?" "You and I and Jenny will go some day soon--" "No, no, no!" cried Elinor, stamping her feet fiercely and wringing her hands. "I don't want Jenny to go! I won't have Jenny! Just you and I! Not Jenny! Just you and I!" "Then just you and I," he said, smiling at her and moving away. "_Wait!_" She darted down the steps and ran to him and drew his face over and laid her cheek against his cheek, clinging to him. He struggled to get away, laughing with his new happiness: tears welled out of her eyes with hers. * * * * * Webster had taken to the turnpike.