She drew from behind a boulder by which we stood a pumpkin of portable size, which I surmised had been carved into the most hideous of jack o' lanterns by the shrewd hand of Hezekiah. I took it from her with the excuse of relieving her, but really to turn the light of the fearsome thing more directly upon her. The wind blew her hair about her face; hers was an elfish face to-night. With a pleasant tingling I met her eyes. The light of a jack o' lantern is not of the earth earthy. Even when you know perfectly well that it's only a candle stuck in a pumpkin, you are not fully satisfied of its mundane character. In its glow one becomes a conspirator, ready for treason, stratagems and spoils. More concretely, in these moments a small archipelago of freckles revealed itself about Hezekiah's nose and caused my heart to palpitate strangely. Her sun-browned cheek was perilously near. I hoped that she would bend forever over the lantern, so that I might not lose the tiny shadows of her lashes, or, again, the laughter of her brown eyes as she glanced up to ask my judgment as to the security of the candle. She viewed her handiwork with feigned solicitude, the tip of her tongue showing between her lips. Then the mirth in her bubbled out, and she drew away and clapped her hands together like a child.
"Come!" she cried. "If you are good and won't begin preaching about my sins, I'll show you the funniest thing you ever saw in your life."
In my joy of seeing her I was neglecting Cecilia's commission. Very likely Hezekiah had forgotten all about her theft; hers, I reasoned, was a nature that delighted in the nearest pleasure. I would follow her jack o' lantern round the world for the chance of seeing the fun brighten in her brown eyes, but I had made a promise to Cecilia and I meant to fulfill it.
She led me now across the meadow, over a stone wall, up a steep slope, and by devious ways through a strip of woodland. I bore the jack o' lantern,--she had bidden me do it, with some notion, I did not question, of making me _particeps criminis_ in whatever mischief was afoot. Dignified conduct in a man of twenty-eight, in his best evening clothes, carrying a jack o' lantern over stone walls, under clumps of briar, and through woods whose boughs clawed the night wildly! The moon lost and found under the flying scud was in keeping with the general irresponsibility of a world ruled by Hezekiah.