"Don't stay there, playmate. Come into the house."
"Where are you?" she asked. There was an eloquent quiver in her voice.
"Never mind. I'm in the house. Stop where you are. There's a little throne. I made it for you."
She had her hand on the back of a rough chair. At once she seated herself.
"I never heard of a throne in a playhouse," she said, with that new merriment he made for her.
"You never saw a playhouse just like this. That's a beautiful throne. It fits together like a chair. It's here in the playhouse by night, but before daylight I draw it up into the tree and hide it."
"That's easy. We'll make another. There's nothing so easy as to make a throne for a playhouse, if you know the way. Well, playmate, how have you been, all this long time?"
When she came across the field she had meant to tell him how sad she was, how perplexed, how incapable of meeting the ills confronting her. But immediately it became unnecessary, and she only laughed and said,--
"I know it, outside. It doesn't rain in a playhouse."
"Of course. What did I tell you? I said 'every night.'"
"An umbrella in a playhouse? You make me laugh."
"Not always. Sometimes I climbed up in the branches--in the roof, I mean. You're eclipsed to-night, aren't you?"
"That dark cloak. The other night you were a white goddess sitting there in the moonlight. You were terribly beautiful then. It's almost a shame to be so beautiful. This is better. I rather like the cloak. You're nothing but a voice to-night, coming out of the dark."
Immediately she had a curious jealousy of the white dress that made her beautiful to him when he did not really know her face.
"You have never seen me," she said involuntarily.
"Oh yes, I have. In the shack, that night. Then the day you came. I saw you driving by."
"In the yard looking at some grafted trees. Peter was late from the train. I got impatient, so I went round fussing over the trees, to keep myself busy. Then you came up the drive, and I saw you and retreated in good order."
"You needn't have hated me so. You hadn't really seen me."
"I saw enough. I saw your cheek and one ear and the color of your hair. Take care, playmate, you mustn't do that."
"You mustn't say I hated you. You know it wasn't hate."