Timothy cast down his lantern and gathered Liva Vesey in his arms. Her cheek lay against his shoulder and he lifted her face and kissed her, three times or four, with all the love that he bore her.
"Liva," he said, "all the time--every day--I've meant this. Did you mean it, too?"
She struggled a little from him, but when he would have let her go she stood still in his arms. And then he would have her words and "Did you?" he begged again. He could not hear what she said without bending close, close, and it was the sweeter for that.
"Oh, Timmie," she answered, "I don't know. I don't know if I _did_. But I do--now."
Timothy's courage came upon him like a mantle.
"An' be ..." Liva assented, and the words faltered away. But they were not greatly missed.
Timothy looked over the pasture, and over the world. And lo, it was suddenly as if, with these, he were become articulate, and they were all three saying something together.
When they turned, there was the lantern glimmering alight on the trodden turf. And in its little circle of brightness they saw something coloured and soft. It was a gay feather, and Timothy took it curiously in his hand.
"See, it's from one of the circus birds," he said.
"No!" Liva cried. "It's an oriole feather. One of the pasture orioles, Timmie!"
"So it is," he assented, and without knowing why, he was glad that it was so. He folded it away with the violet Liva had gathered that afternoon. After all the strangeness, what he treasured most had belonged to the pasture all the time.
"Liva!" he begged. "Will you wear the picture--my picture--in that locket?"
"Oh," she said, "Timmie, I'm so sorry. The locket's one I bought cheap in the city, and it don't open."
She wondered why that seemed to make him love her more. She wondered a little, too, when on the edge of the pasture Timothy stood still, looking back.
"Liva!" he said, "don't the Pump pasture seem differ'nt? Don't it seem like another place?"
"Yes," Liva said, "it don't seem the same."
"Liva!" Timothy said again, "it ain't the pasture that's so differ'nt. It's _us_."
She laughed a little--softly, and very near his coat sleeve.
"I 'most knew that this afternoon," she answered.
This morning Miggy came by appointment to do a little work for me, and she appeared in some "best" frock to honour the occasion. It was a blue silk muslin, cut in an antiquated style and trimmed with tarnished silver passementerie. In it the child was hardly less distinguished than she had been in her faded violet apron. It was impossible for her to seem to be unconscious of her dress, and she spoke of it at once with her fine directness.