The intermittent2 showers of yesterday afternoon and night had cleaned the June world, and the four ancient cedars3 from which the Walton place had received its name, and in the broken shade of which Eve was reading, exhaled4 a spicy5 odor under the influence of moisture and warmth. Eve, a slim white figure against the dark-green of the foliage6, the sun flecking her waving hair, looked up, smiled and laid her book down.
"Good morning," she said. "Have you come to help me be lazy?"
"If you need help," he replied. "I brought these. They're not much, but I think they're the last in the village." He handed her a half-dozen sprays of purple lilac, small and in some places already touched with brown.
"Oh," she said, "they're lovely!" She buried her face in them and crooned over them delightedly. Witnessing her pleasure, Wade had no regrets for his hour's search over the length and breadth of Eden Village. She laid them in her lap and looked up curiously7. "Where did you get them? Not from your hedge?"
"Oh, I just stopped at the florist's as I came along," he laughed. "He apologized for them and wanted me to take orchids8, but I told him they were for the Lilac Girl."
"Is that me?" smiled Eve. "Thank you very much." She made a little bow. "I feel dreadfully impolite and inhospitable, Mr. Herrick, at not asking you to sit down, but—you see!" She waved a hand before her. "There's nothing but the ground, and that's damp, I'm afraid. So let us go indoors. Besides, I must put these in water."
"Please don't," he begged. "The ground isn't damp where the sun shines, and I wouldn't mind if it were. If I'm not keeping you from your book I'll sit down here. May I?"
"You'll catch rheumatism9 or ague or something else dreadful," she warned.
"Not I," he laughed. "I've never been sick a day in my life, unless it was after I'd got mixed up with dynamite10 that time. Don't you think you might wear those lilacs?"
"Surely not all of them. One, perhaps." She tucked a spray in at the bosom11 of her white waist. "You haven't told me yet where you got them. Have you been stealing?"
"Some I stole, some I begged, and some I—just took. I think I can truthfully declare, though, that there is not another bit of lilac at this moment in the whole village. I went on a foraging12 expedition after breakfast and there is the result. I've examined every bush and hedge with a microscope."
"And all that trouble for me!" she exclaimed. "I'm sure I'm flattered." A little flush of rose-pink crept into her clear cheeks. "Do you know, Mr. Herrick, you're a perfectly13 delightful14 neighbor? Last night fish, to-day flowers! And I haven't thanked you for the fish, have I? They were delicious, and it was good of you to send them. Especially as Zenas Third said you didn't have very good luck."
"No, we didn't catch many," answered Wade, "but we had a good time. I was sorry I couldn't send more, though."
"More! Pray how many trout15 do you think two ladies of delicate appetites can eat, Mr. Herrick? You sent six, and we didn't begin to eat all of those."
"Really? They were little chaps, too. I'm glad you liked them. Next time I hope I'll have some better ones to offer. Zenas and I are going to try again the first cloudy day."
"I hope you have good luck." There was a moment's silence. Eve raised the lilacs to her face again and over the tips of the sprays shot a glance at Wade. He had crossed his legs under him and was feeling for his pipe. He looked up and their eyes met.
"I'm afraid I can't offer you any tobacco," she said.
"I've got plenty," he laughed, "if you don't mind my smoking."
"Not a bit. Perhaps I should call Carrie. I think she likes the smell of tobacco better than any perfume she knows."
"Is she well?" asked Wade, contritely16. "I should have asked before, but—you—something put it out of my head."
"Quite well, thanks. She's making something for luncheon17 and has forbidden me the kitchen. It's a surprise. Do you like surprises, Mr. Herrick?"
"Some. It depends on the nature of them."
"I suppose it does. An earthquake, for instance, would be a rather disagreeable surprise, wouldn't it?"
"Decidedly. I can imagine a surprise that would be distinctly pleasant, though," said Wade, giving a great deal of attention to the selection of a match from his silver case. "For instance, if you were to give me a small piece of that lilac for my buttonhole."
"That would surprise you?" laughed Eve. "Then I'm to understand that you think me ungenerous?"
"No, indeed, I was—was considering my unworthiness."
"Such humility18 is charming," answered Eve, breaking off a tiny spray and tossing it to him. "There; aren't you awfully19 surprised? Please look so."
Wade struck an attitude and made a grimace20 which to a third person would have indicated wild alarm.
"Oh, dear," laughed Eve, "if that's your idea of looking pleasant I'd hate to see you in an earthquake!"
Wade placed the spray in his buttonhole. "Thank you," he said, "I shall have quite a collection—"
"You were going to say?" asked Eve politely as he paused.
"I was going to say"—he paused again. "You know I already have a spray of this that belongs to you." He shot a quick, curious glance at her.
"You have? And where did you get it?"
Wade lighted his pipe very deliberately21.
"You dropped it outside my window the other day."
"Oh!" said Eve, with a careless laugh.
"I'm afraid that must be withered22 by this time."
"It is," said Wade. There was no reply to this, and he looked up to find her gazing idly at the pages of her book, which she was ruffling23 with her fingers. "I'm keeping you from reading," he said.
"No, I don't want to read. It's not interesting."
"May I see what it is?" She held the cover up for his inspection24.
"Have you read it?" she asked. He shook his head slowly.
"I don't read many novels, and those I do read I forget all about the next minute. Of course I try to keep up with the important ones, the ones folks always ask you about, like Mrs. Humphrey Ward's and Miss Wharton's."
"Yes? And do you like them?"
"I suppose so," he replied, dubiously25. "I think the last one I read was 'The Fruit of Mirth.' I didn't care very much for that, did you? If I'd had my way I'd have passed around the morphine to the whole bunch early in the book."
Eve smiled. "I'm afraid you wouldn't care for this one either," she said, indicating the book in her lap. "I heard this described as 'forty chapters of agony and two words of relief.'"
"'The End,' eh? That was clever. You write stories yourself, don't you?"
"Of a sort, stories for little children about fairies, usually. They don't amount to much."
"I'll bet they're darn—mighty good," said Wade, stoutly26.
"I wish they were 'darned good,'" she laughed. "If they were they'd sell better. I used to write little things for our college paper, and then, when papa died, and there wasn't very much left after the executors had got through, writing seemed about the only thing I could do. I took some stories to the magazine that papa was editor of, and they were splendid to me. They couldn't use them, but they told me where to take them and I sold several. That was the beginning. Now I'm fast becoming a specialist in 'Once-Upon-a-Time' stories."
"I'd like to read some of them," said Wade. "I'm awfully fond of fairy stories." "Oh, but these are very young fairy stories, like—like this one." Eve pulled a pencilled sheet of paper from the pages of her book, smiled, hesitated, and read: "'Once upon a time there was a Fairy Princess whose name was Dewdrop. She lived in a beautiful Blue Palace deep in the heart of a Canterbury Bell that swayed to and fro, to and fro, at the top of the garden wall. And when the sun shone against the walls of her palace it was filled with a lovely lavender light, and when the moon shone it was all asparkle with silver. It was quite the most desirable palace in the whole garden, for it was the only one that had a view over the great high wall, and many fairies envied her because she lived in it. One of those who wanted the Blue Palace for himself was a very wicked fairy who lived under a toadstool nearby. He was so terribly wicked that I don't like to even tell you about him. He never got up to breakfast when he was called, he never did as he was told, and he used to sit for hours on top of his toadstool, putting out his tongue at all the other fairies who flew by. And he did lots and lots of other things, too, that only a
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