twenty-three and singularly free from ties. Her mother had died when she
was a child. Her father, the physician of the surrounding country, a man
of engaging energy with an empirical education and a speculative habit
of mind, had been the companion of her girlhood. During the last few
years since his return from the war an invalid from a wound, her care
for him had left her time for little else.

No more was Babcock in haste to reach home; and after the preliminary
dash from the door into the glorious night he suffered the farm-horse to
pursue its favorite gait, a deliberate jog. He knew the creature to be
docile, and that he could bestow his attention on his companion without
peril to her. His own pulses were bounding. He was conscious of having
made the whirligig of time pass merrily for the company by his spirits
and jolly quips, and that in her presence, and he was groping for an
appropriate introduction to the avowal he had determined to make. He
would never have a better opportunity than this, and it had been his
preconceived intention to take advantage of it if all went well. All had
gone well and he was going to try. She had been kind coming over; and
had seemed to listen with interest as he told her about himself: and
somehow he had felt less distant from her. He was not sure what she
would say, for he realized that she was above him. That was one reason
why he admired her so. She symbolized for him refinement, poetry, art,
the things of the spirit--things from which in the same whirligig of
time he had hitherto been cut off by the vicissitudes of the varnish
business; but the value of which he was not blind to. How proud he would
be of such a wife! How he would strive and labor for her! His heart was
in his mouth and trembled on his lip as he thought of the possibility.
What a joy to be sitting side by side with her under this splendid moon!
He would speak and know his fate.