"Are you sure of that?" he asks, looking into my eyes with those blue ones that have never met mine yet without their warm love-light burning steadily.
"Quite sure!" I say, smitten with a quick compunction; for am I not devoutly glad at the prospect of going away from him? and when did he ever leave me without regret? "You ought to be there to take care of me, ought you not?"
"If you go away this time, Nell," he says, some other man will fall in love with you, and you will never come back to me any more. I can see it all quite plainly. Will you not stay, dear, and try to put up with a poor, rough fellow, who loves you?"
"There is no fear of any one I shall see there," I say softly; "besides, who is likely to fall in love with me there or anywhere else? Every eye hath its own Naboth's vineyard (Did not some one or other say that?) and I am yours, but I'm not likely to be anybody else's. I shall come back again like a bad penny, never fear." I stoop to pluck a handful of small bind-weed, whose pale pink cups are opening to the sunshine with a dim faint fragrance.
"If only I were sure of you," says the young man; "if only these wretched months were up!"
"Poor George!" I say gently. Alas! that I should have to say, Poor George! When a woman pities her lover, she is a long, long way from loving him. I think he knows it, for he shakes his shoulders back impatiently; he looks as nearly wretched as his blonde, sunny, good looks permit. These fair men never manage to look as disconsolate and woe-begone over their misfortunes as do the black-eyed, black-haired, funereal lovers.
In these morning rambles, we always visit every outbuilding and corner, clean or unclean. We have now arrived at the pigsty, and the two papas are inside, prodding the fat sides of the porkers, and disputing loudly over the superiority of this breed or that. "Poor Chucky!" I say, resting my elbows on the top of the stone
