“I am thankful for many things,” she was thinking, “and most of all I am thankful that I am pretty.  I suppose it’s better to be good like Judy Hatch, but I’d rather be pretty.”

She was at the age when the forces of character still lie dormant, and an accident may determine the direction of their future development.  It is the age when it is possible for fortune to make a dare-devil of a philosopher, a sceptic of a worshipper, a cynic of a sentimentalist.

When she went down the flagged walk a little later to meet Abel by the blazed pine as she had promised, she was still smiling to herself and to the blue birds that sang joyously in the blossoming trees in the orchard.  At the end of the walk her smile vanished for she came face to face with Jim Halloween, who carried a new-born lamb in his arms.

“Many happy returns of the day,” he began with emotion.  “I thought a present like this would be the most acceptable thing I could bring to you—­an’ ma agreed with me when I asked her advice.”

“It’s very good of you—­and how darling it is!  I’ll take it back and make it comfortable before I start out.”

Taking the lamb into her arms, she hid her face in its wool while they returned to the house.

“It ain’t so young as it looks, an will begin to be peart enough befo’ long,” he remarked.  “Something useful as well as ornamental, was what I had in mind to bring you.  ‘Thar’s nothin’ mo’ suitable all round for the purpose than a lamb,’ was what I said to ma.  ’She can make a pet of it at first, an’ then when it gets too big to pet, she can turn it into mutton.’”

“But I wouldn’t—­I’d never let it be killed—­the little darling!”

“Now, that’s foolishness, I reckon,” he returned admiringly, “but thar’s something downright takin’ in foolishness as long as a woman is pretty.  I don’t mind it, an’ I don’t reckon ma would unless it turned to wastefulness.  Is thar’ any hope you’ve changed yo’ mind since the last time I spoke about marriage?”

“No, I haven’t changed, Mr. Halloween.”

He sighed not passionately, but with a resigned and sentimental regret.

“Well, in that case, it’s a pity I’ve wasted so much time wantin’ you, I reckon,” he rejoined.  “It ain’t sensible to want what you can’t have, an I’ve always tried to be sensible, seein’ I’m a farmer.  If I hadn’t set my fancy on you I’d have waited on Blossom Revercomb as likely as not.”

They had reached the house, and she did not reply until she had entered the living-room and placed the lamb in a basket.  Coming out again, she took up the thread of the conversation as she closed the door behind her.

“I wonder all of you don’t turn your eyes on Blossom,” she observed.

“Yes, she’s handsome enough, but stiff-mouthed and set like all the rest of the Revercombs.  I shouldn’t like to marry a Revercomb, when it comes to that.”

“Shouldn’t you?” she asked and laughed merrily.