do anything I liked and break any law I pleased. But all the time, like
a saint in a stained-glass window, she always seemed to be saying, 'Yes,
you'd like to, but you mustn't.' She was just like the moon. I'm well
acquainted with the moon, and--"

"Hush!" Louise interrupted. "Don't you hear something stirring--there,
behind us?"

He laughed. "Of course something's always 'stirring behind us' on the
prairie, and things you can't hear at all in the day are almost loud at
night. There are thousands of sounds that never get to your ears when
the sun is busy, but when Aunt Primrose Moon is saying, 'Hush! Hush!' to
the naughty children of this world, you can hear a whole new population
at work, cracking away like mad. Say, ain't I letting myself go to-
night?" he added, giggling again and sitting down beside her. "I'm
going to give you just half an hour, and at the end of that half-hour
you've got to go to sleep."

"I can't--I can't," she said scarcely above a whisper. As though in
response to an unspoken thought, he said casually: "I'm going to walk
awhile when you've lain down, and then--" He pointed to a spot about
twenty yards away. "Do you see the two big stones there? Well, when
I've finished my walk and my talk with Aunty Primrose"--he laughed up
at the moon--"I'm going to sit down there and snooze till daylight." He
pointed again: "Right over there beside those two rocks. That's my bed.
Do you see?"

She did not reply at once, but a long sigh came from her lips. "You'll
be cold," she said.