early. The three of them sat out on the porch till the night came
stealing up; it covered the street and the yard with darkness,
crawled into the tree tops and the rose-bushes and the lilac-hedge.
It hid all the familiar objects of daytime, except the street-lamp
at the corner and certain windows of the neighbours' houses, which
now showed square and yellow. Of the people on the porch next door,
and of those passing in the street, only the voices remained; and,
sometimes, a glowing point of red which was a cigar.

Presently the moon crept up from behind the Jones's house, peeping
stealthily, as if to make sure that all was right in Cherryvale. And
then everything became visible again, but in a magically beautiful
way; it was now like a picture from a fairy-tale. Indeed, this was
the hour when your belief in fairies was most apt to return to you.

The locusts began to sing. They sang loudly. And grandma kept up her
chatter. But within Missy everything seemed to become very quiet.
Suddenly she felt sad, a peculiar, serene kind of sadness. It grew
from the inside out--now and then almost escaping in a sigh. Because
it couldn't quite escape, it hurt; she envied the locusts who were
letting their sadness escape in that reiterant, tranquil song.

She was glad when, at last, grandpa said:

"How'd you like to go in and play me a tune, Missy?"

"Oh, I'd love to, grandpa!" Missy jumped up eagerly.

So grandpa lighted the parlour lamp, whose crystal bangles now
looked like enormous diamonds; and a delicious time commenced.