"I only meant to be a tease. If I'd really thought anything--I wouldn't, of course; none of my darn business. But I'm _awfully_ glad. I've hoped all along it would happen. It's the best ever. Am I to be secret as the grave or can I tell--any one I happen to meet?" "Give us ten minutes to tell mamma," said Lee, "and then consider your lips unsealed." Herring had drawn from his pocket a stop-watch and set it going. "Ten minutes," he said. "Thanks awfully! And good luck!" He had turned, waving his free hand to them, and darted away. Lee laughed scornfully. "Any one he happens to meet!" she exclaimed. "He's headed straight for the garden, and there he'll just _happen_ to meet Phyllis. She was speaking of her tomatoes at breakfast, and saying that they ought to be ripening and that she was going to have a look at them." "Lee, darling," said Renier, "nobody can possibly see us. And when Mr. Heartbeat left us alone in the front room it was a frightfully long time ago. And sometimes a fellow's arms get to aching with sheer emptiness, and--and, 'this is the forest primeval, the murmuring pines and the hemlocks----'" "Are mostly birches and larches hereabouts," said Lee, and, with a happy laugh, she drifted into a pair of arms that closed tightly about her. And, "It doesn't matter if anybody does see us," she said. * * * * * It was characteristic of Herring that he should enter the garden by leaping over the fence. It was also characteristic that he should catch his foot on the top rail and fall at full length in a bed of very beautiful and much cherished phlox. Phyllis, in the path near by, gazed at the fallen man with mirth and anxiety. "Hurt?" she asked. He rose and examined a watch which he was carrying in his right hand. "Crystal smashed," he said, "but still going. And I've got to wait four minutes!" "Why have you got to wait four minutes?" "Because I promised to wait ten, and six of them have elapsed. Oh, but won't you be excited when I am at liberty to speak! It's more exciting than when we were lost in the woods, crossing the swamp that had never been crossed before. Meanwhile, let us calm ourselves by talking of something prosaic. How are the tomatoes getting on?" Phyllis put up her hand in a smiling military salute. "'General Blank's compliments,'" she said, "'and the colored troops are turning black in the face.'" "My favorite breakfast dish," said Herring, "is grilled tomatoes, preceded by raw oysters and oatmeal." "Isn't it nice," said Phyllis, "that there is money in the family after all, and we're going to give up The Camp as an inn?" "It would have been given up anyway," said Herring. "A determined body of men had so resolved in secret. There's one minute left." For some reason they found nothing to say during the whole of that minute. When the last second thereof had passed forever, Herring said simply: "Your sister Lee and Renier are going to be married."