Stepping from the covert that had shielded him, he called softly to her.

"Prudence--Prue!"

She had reached again for the kitten, but at the sound of his low,
vigorous note, she turned quickly toward him, colouring with a glow that
spread from the corner of the crossed kerchief up to the yellow hair
above her brow. She answered with quick breaths.

"Joel--Joel--Joel!"

She laughed aloud, clapping her small hands, and he ran to her--over
beds of marigolds, heartsease, and lady's-slippers, through a row of
drowsy-looking, heavy-headed dahlias, and past other withering flowers,
all but choked out by the rank garden growths of late summer. Then his
arms opened and seemed to swallow the leaping little figure, though his
kisses fell with hardly more weight upon the yielded face than had the
rose-petals a moment since, so tenderly mindful was his ardour. She
submitted, a little as the pampered kitten had before submitted to her
own pettings.

"You dear old sobersides, you--how gaunt and careworn you look, and how
hungry, and what wild eyes you have to frighten one with! At first I
thought you were a crazy man."

He held her face up to his eager eyes, having no words to say, overcome
by the joy that surged through him like a mighty rush of waters. In the
moment's glorious certainty he rested until she stirred nervously under
his devouring look, and spoke.