Milton pulled Marc down to a slow trot, and, tightening his arm around Bettie's shoulders in a very brotherly hug, said:
"Well, I'm glad you and Ed have fixed things up again. You'd always have been sorry."
"It was all my fault anyway," replied the girl, with a little tremor in her voice, "and it was all my fault to-night, too. I no business to 'a' gone off an' left him that way."
"Well, it's all over now anyway, and so I wouldn't worry any more about it," said Milton, soothingly, and then they fell into silence again.
The sagacious Marc Antony strode steadily away, and the two young lovers went on with their dreaming. Bettie was silent mainly, and Milton was trying to fancy that she was Eileen, and was remembering the long rides they had had together. And the horse's hoofs beat a steady rhythm, the moon fell to the west, and the bells kept cheery chime. The breath of the horse rose into the air like steam. The house-dogs sent forth warning howls as they went by. Once or twice they passed houses where the windows were still lighted and where lanterns were flashing around the barn, where the horses were being put in for the night.
The lights were out at the home of Bettie when they drove up, for the young people, however rapidly they might go to the sociable, always returned much slower than the old folks. Milton leaped out and held up his arms to help his companion out. As she shook the robes down, stood up and reached out for his arms, he seized her round the waist, and, holding her clear of the ground, kissed her in spite of her struggles.
"Milton!"
"The las' time, Bettie; the las' time," he said, in extenuation. With this mournful word on his lips he leaped into the sleigh and was off like the wind. But the listening girl heard his merry voice ringing out on the still air. Suddenly something sweet and majestic swept upon the girl. Something that made her look up into the glittering sky with vast yearning. In the awful hush of the sky and the plain she heard the beat of her own blood in her ears. She longed for song to express the swelling of her throat and the wistful ache of her heart.
* * *
AN AFTERWORD:
OF WINDS, SNOWS AND THE STARS
O witchery of the winter night
(With broad moon shouldering to the west)!
In city streets the west wind sweeps
Before my feet in rustling flight;
The midnight snows in untracked heaps
Lie cold and desolate and white.
I stand and wait with upturned eyes,
Awed with the splendor of the skies
And star-trained progress of the moon.
The city walls dissolve like smoke
Beneath the magic of the moon,
And age falls from me like a cloak;
I hear sweet girlish voices ring,
Clear as some softly stricken string—
(The moon is sailing to the west.)
The sleigh-bells clash in homeward flight;
With frost each horse's breast is white—
(The big moon sinking to the west.)
* * *
"Good night, Lettie!"
"Good night, Ben!"
(The moon is sinking at the west.)
"Good night, my sweetheart," Once again
The parting kiss while comrades wait
Impatient at the roadside gate,
And the red moon sinks beyond the west.
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