"Was it Peters you saw goin' into the yard?" Margaret inquired, and the old fellow answered: "Looked mighty like him--fur a time I thought it was, but my eyes ain't as good as they was." In the meantime Jim was fighting his way through the briars and over the rough ground of the short cut from the little county town. And when he reached the road he saw Mrs. Mayfield coming to meet him. "The preacher wasn't at home," he said, as he came near to her, "but I left word for him and he will be here soon. Do the folks know anything about it yet?" "I told your uncle, but he seemed already to know." She gave a tender account of the scene in the yard, of Tom and Lou, and he said that like his uncle he had already known. "Fate got out of the wagon when you drove up to the gate, ma'm--honey," he said; "and I am thankful to the Lord that in no wise was it cruel onesidedness. I couldn't tell that Tom loved Lou, but I knew she loved him." "There is no need now of walking so fast," she playfully remarked, and he checked his haste. "No, for I am not walking toward you, but with you. I left time back yonder where I met you and after this there can't be any time, just a rising and a setting of the sun with time in a sweet dream between." "Jim, I ought to tell you something about my married life; and when I have told you the truth, you may not hold me so blameless." "Mary, I don't date you back beyond the time when you drove up to the gate. I don't want to know anything about your past. It didn't include me." "Your faith is simple and beautiful now, Jim, but may there not come a time when it will begin to inquire--when perhaps I might fret you? Weariness is a close critic, Jim." "You may teach me many things, Mary, but not to find fault. Look back to your home in the town and think of what you are giving up for me--for a life of toil among the hills." She took hold of his arm and drew him close to her. "I am giving up cold glitter for warm glow." They turned aside to sit in the cool shade at the water-fall, and there they found Tom and Lou, dreaming with their heads together. High above there had been a heavy rain and the falls were pouring with such a roar that there was no talk; but the four of them sat there on a great rock, gazing at the rainbow hanging above the yellowish water. But when they withdrew to a cove where it was quiet, Tom told Jim that he had put a boy on a horse and sent him after a marriage license. "When we come to think," said Mrs. Mayfield, "it is all very hasty. It might look better to wait." "That's what I wanted to say," Lou replied. "I always thought that folks had to make up some new clothes when they were married--or befo'. But here I am with hardly any clothes at all."