Excerpt from White Birches: A Novel For he left word that he would be home to supper; but it would be some time before they concluded that any accident had happened to the best climber in the valley, and felt authorized to go after him. He reflected with grim amusement on the spectacle of his own towering rage if nothing had happened, and he, simply taking his own time to return, had been met upon the road by a posse provided with lanterns and anxiety. It would be just like that atro cions little Mrs. Needham to suggest it. There was noth ing she liked better than going about after presentable men, with or without a lantern, and she had already shown a well defined inclination to watch over him, just now the only thoroughly presentable man at hand. She was no fool either, that same little Mrs. Needham, which made it the more difficult to avoid her and at the same time increased his anxiety to do so - for this man had all his sex's tolera tion for a pretty woman, who is also a fool. Well, she was safe to see that he didn't stay out all night, as he'd made some idiotic promise to sit on the stile with her, at the end of the garden, and see the moon rise. She had drawn from him the object of his walk that day too, so she might follow if she could find anybody to drive her to the bars - he re membered hoping they would all be busy haying. So she might make her appearance before lantern-time. Austin. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.