Page:A Little Country Girl - Coolidge (1887).djvu/203

 The farmer and his wife, who seemed to be old acquaintances, came out to speak to her. The baskets were collected, and the carriages sent back to town, with orders to return to the same place at six o'clock.

"Oh, why six? why not stay and go home by moonlight?" urged Julia.

"My dear child, if you were in the habit of reading either the almanac or the heavens, you would know that there will be no moon to-night till after eleven o'clock," said her chaperone. "These roads will be as black as pitch by half-past seven. Now, girls, each of you take your own shawl and one of the baskets, and we will descend into Paradise. It sounds paradoxical, but you shall see."

She led the way down a steep narrow pathway on the hill-side into the valley below. The path was overhung with trees. It was necessary to put the boughs aside here and there; brambles reached from the thicket to catch at the girls' skirts as they went by; but when they had passed these trifling obstacles