"Not yet. It is far too pleasant here. Where is that old settee that used to be under the oriole elm? Why, there it is, of course, only pushed to the other side," and the speaker started for the desired haven.
"Come back, come back, Gorham Page. Don’t you wade through the wet grass!" exclaimed Miss Berry imperatively.
Her visitor turned around, laughing. "That sounds natural, Aunt Love," he said.
"Well, perhaps it does," replied the other in half-laughing apology; "but haven’t you learned good sense yet? The dew’s a-fallin’, and that grass ought to been mowed last week."
"Do you remember when I used to mow it for you?"
"I remember when you used to promise to," rejoined Miss Berry, the corners of her mouth still twitching. "Look here. I ain’t goin’ under that elm to set with my feet in the water."
"All right," replied Page, succumbing with a sigh, and casting a glance toward the graceful branches of the tallest elm, behind which the new moon glimmered in a primrose sky. "What an evening!" he ejaculated.
"I do like those old trees," said her guest slowly, continuing to gaze.
"So do the mosquitoes," replied Miss Berry inflexibly. "Come up on to the stoop."
Page, with a smile of amusement, followed his hostess to the piazza, where she ensconced him in one rocking chair, and herself in another.
"Do the orioles still hold possession of that elm?"
"I’m glad of that. The rest of the world may change, and must; but I’m jealous of a hair’s breadth of change in Pearfield."
"Well, I don’t know. The hang-birds squabble a good deal," remarked Miss Lovina impartially.
Her guest laughed again. The fact being that very few things in life moved him to laughter, he was enjoying himself hugely.
"You are too practical; too unsentimental, Aunt Love," he asserted argumentatively.
"Too unsentimental, hey?" responded Miss Berry, folding her hands over the white apron that protected her striped gingham gown. "That’s pretty good from you. What does it mean? Have you repented o’ your singular ways, and been fallin’ in love?"
"Oh, yes," responded the other, more seriously; then added simply, as though stating an undeniable fact, "I am always falling in love."
"Then why don’t you get married?" asked Miss Lovina bluntly. "I haven’t heard a thing about you in so long, I didn’t know but what you was married, only I hadn’t received any cake. I didn’t believe you’d forget me."