He could not believe his ears. Could this be Elinor, his tease, his torment? This wounded appeal, timid pleading--could it proceed from Elinor? He was thrown off his balance and too surprised to act. The words were repeated more beseechingly, wistfully:
For now that she had given herself away to him, he might as well see everything: that at last she was openly begging that she be admitted to a share in his plans and pleasures, that he no longer disdain to play with her.
He spoke with rough embarrassment over his shoulder:
"You can't go today. Nobody can go today. I'm going miles out into the country to the woods."
"But some day will you take me over into the woods yonder?"
"Thank you very much. Thank you very much, indeed, Webster!"
The tide of feeling began to rush toward her:
"There are some wild violets over there, Elinor, wild blue violets and wild white violets--thick beds of them in the shade."
"Oh, how lovely!" She clasped her hands and knotted them tensely under her chin and kept her eyes fixed more hopefully on him.
"There is a flock of the funniest little fairies dancing under one of the big forest trees, each carrying the queerest little green parasol."
"And I found one little cedar tree. If they'll let us, I'll dig it up and bring it home and plant it in the front yard. It will be your own cedar tree, Elinor."
"Oh, Webster! Could anything be more lovely of you?"
"You and I and Jenny will go some day soon--"
"No, no, no!" cried Elinor, stamping her feet fiercely and wringing her hands. "I don't want Jenny to go! I won't have Jenny! Just you and I! Not Jenny! Just you and I!"
"Then just you and I," he said, smiling at her and moving away.
She darted down the steps and ran to him and drew his face over and laid her cheek against his cheek, clinging to him.
He struggled to get away, laughing with his new happiness: tears welled out of her eyes with hers.
The morning was cool, the blue of the sky vast, tender, noble. Rain during the night had left the atmosphere fresh and clear and the pike dustless. Little knobs of the bluish limestone jutted out. The greyish grass and weeds on each side had been washed till they looked green again.
The pike climbed a hill and from this hilltop he turned and looked back. He could see the packed outskirts of the city and away over in the heart of it church spires rising here and there. The heart of it had once been the green valley through which a stream of the wilderness ran: there Wilson had seen the water mills and the gallows for hanging Kentuckians and the thousand hitched horses and folks sitting on the public square selling cakes of maple sugar and split squirrels.