She snuggled up closely to him, by and by, confidingly and unsuspicious, and just talked and talked and talked. It was very pleasant to have her there at his side, babbling innocently away in that sweet, musical voice. How pretty she was, how artless and trusting, how honest and how heart-whole! It came to him that his family and friends had for a long time been telling him that he ought to get married, and he began to see that they were right. How delightful it would be to stay on forever in this enchanted grove with her. He presently found himself fervently saying it, though he had not intended such words to pass his lips. She took the wish as a matter of course. She had confidently expected him to feel that way about it, and, if he felt that way, to say so. "Adnah Eggleson!" They jumped like juvenile jam-thieves caught red-handed. Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ann and Aunt Matilda rigidly confronted them, having stolen upon them unseen, unheard, unthought of, and they stood now in grim horror, merciless and implacable. They advanced in a swooping body, after one moment of agonizing suspense, and snatched Adnah into their midst, glaring three kinds of loathing scorn upon the interloping serpent. "Has this person _kissed_ you, or attempted to do so?" hissed Aunt Sarah. "Not yet," meekly answered poor Adnah. "I assure you ladies--," began the serpent, but Aunt Sarah cut him short. "Silence, sir!" she commanded. "We wish no explanations from you, whatsoever." Thus crushing him, the little company wheeled and marched away, bearing Adnah an unwilling and impenitent captive, two of them ingeniously keeping behind her so that she should have no opportunity of even exchanging a backward glance with the serpent. Left to himself the serpent moodily kicked holes in the turf. He had an intense desire to do something violent--to smash something, no matter what. He was furious with the trio of aunts. It was a shame, he told himself, to bury alive a beautiful and noble young woman like that, through a warped and mistaken notion of the world. What right had they to condemn a sweet and affectionate creature such as she to a starved and morbid spinsterhood? It was his duty to rescue her from the colorless fate that hung over her, and he would do his duty. He was unconsciously flexing his biceps as he said it. Would he? How? Should he get out a search warrant or a writ of replevin? This whimsical view of the case only exasperated him the more as it presented the utter hopelessness of approaching her--of ever seeing her again--and, when the dogs came chasing an utterly inconsequential and useless butterfly in his direction, he pelted them with stones until they yelped. Hang the dogs, anyhow. It was all their fault! Next he blamed himself. If he had only resisted that creek like a man he wouldn't have been a hundred miles from home without clothes or money, and silly about a girl he had never seen until that day.