96 COUSIN PHILLIS.
the whole case, and only annoyed her. I went up to her. "Oh, Phillis! I am so sorry — I thought you would, perhaps, have cared to hear it; he did talk so feelingly, as if he did love you so much, and somehow I thought it would give you pleasure."
She lifted up her head and looked at me. Such a look! Her eyes, glittering with tears as they were, expressed an almost heavenly happiness; her tender mouth was curved with rapture — her colour vivid and blushing; but as if she was afraid her face expressed too much, more than the thankfulness to me she was essaying to speak, she hid it again almost immediately. So it was all right then, and my conjecture was well-founded! I tried to remember something more to tell her of what he had said, but again she stopped me.
"Don't," she said. She still kept her face covered and hidden. In half a minute she added, in a very low voice, "Please, Paul, I think I would rather not hear any more — I don't mean but what I have — but what I am very much obliged - Only — only, I think I would rather hear the rest from himself when he comes back."
And then she cried a little more, in quite a different way. I did not say any more, I waited for her. By-and-by she turned towards me — not meeting my eyes, however; and putting her hand in mine just as if we were two children, she said, —
"We had best go back now — I don't look as if I had been crying, do I?"
"You look as if you had a bad cold," was all the answer I made.
