Bart laughed, and _The Man_, gazing around the table innocently said,
"Oh, has _it_ begun, and am I intruding and breaking up plans? Why
didn't you tell me?"

So we went out through the sweet-smelling twilight, or rather the glow
that comes before it, and as we idly sipped the coffee, lo and behold,
the old farm lay before us--a dream picture painted by the twilight! The
little window-panes, iridescent with age and bulged into odd shapes by
yielding sashes, caught the sunset hues and turned to fire opals; the
light mist rising over the green meadows where the flowers now slept
with heads bent and eyes closed lent the green and pearl tints of those
mysterious gems to which drops of rain or dew strung everywhere made
diamond settings.

"By Jove!" exclaimed Bart, "how beautiful the Opie farm looks to-night!
If a real-estate agent could only get a photograph of what we see, we
should soon have a neighbour to rescue the place!"

"You mustn't call it the Opie farm any more; it is Opal Farm from
to-night!" I cried, "and no one shall buy it unless they promise to
leave in the old windows and let the meadow and crab orchard stay as
they are, besides giving me right of way through it quite down to the
river woods!"

But to get back by this circuitous route to the threatened danger with
which I opened this letter--

The postman whistled, as he has an alluring way of doing when he brings
the evening mail, always hoping that some one will come out for a bit of