were chattering, and before the boys knew it, she had faded into the
dusk of the hall, and the clattering of dishes came to them from the
rear of the house. John fancied he felt the heavy step of Buchanan
Culpepper, and then he heard: "Don't you talk to me, Buck Culpepper,
about woman's work. You'll do what I tell you, and if I say wipe
dishes--" the voice was drowned by the rattle of a passing wagon. And
soon the young people on the front porch were so busy with their
affairs that the house behind them and its affairs dropped to another
world. They say, who seem to know, that when any group of boys and
girls meet under twenty-five serious years, the recording angel puts
down his pen with, a sigh and takes a needed nap. But when the group
pairs off, then Mr. Recorder pricks up his ears and works with both
hands, one busy taking what the youngsters say, and the other busy
with what they would like to say. And shame be it upon the courage of
youth that what they would like to say fills the larger book. And
marvel of marvels, often the book that holds what the boys would say
is merely a copy of what the girls would like to hear, and so much of
the work is saved to the angel.

It was nine o'clock when the limping boy and the slender girl followed
the tall youth and the plump little girl down the walk from the
Culpepper home through the gate and into the main road. And the couple
that walked behind took the opposite direction from that which they
took who walked ahead. Yet when John and Ellen reached the river and
were seated on the mill-dam, where the roar of the falling water
drowned their voices, Ellen Culpepper spoke first: "That looks like
them over on the bridge. I can see Molly, and Bob's hat about three
feet above her."

"I guess so," returned the boy. He was reaching behind him for clods