e and
laid her hand upon the top of the paling, and looked over at him and
said:

"Have they buried him? Did you--have you been there?"

"Yes," said he.

"We have only just heard a rumour that the funeral was taking place. I
thought when I saw you that perhaps you had been there. I am so glad you
went." Her eyes looked upon him with kind approval.

He fancied from her manner that she thought herself older than he--that
she was treating him like a boy. Her face was bright with interest and
had the flush of some slight embarrassment upon it.

He told her what had happened and where the grave was, and stood in the
sweet evening air with quieted manner before her. She did not seem to be
thinking of what he said. "There was something else that I--I rather
wanted to take the first opportunity of saying to you."

All her face now was rosy with embarrassment, and he saw that, although
she went on bravely, she was shy--shy of him! He hardly took in what she
was saying, in the wonder, in the pleasure of it. Then he knew that she
had been saying that she feared she had talked to him while mistaking
him for his brother, that what she had said had doubtless appeared very
wild, very foolish, as he did not know the conversation out of which it
grew; probably he had forgotten or had not paid heed at the time, but if
he should chance to remember, and had not already repeated her words,
would he be kind enough not to do so, and to forget them himself?

This was her request, and he guessed, from the tenor of it, that she did
not know how little he had heard in all or how much she had said to him
and how much to his brother; that she would like to know, but was too
proud to ask or to hear; that, in fact, this proud lady had said words
that she was ashamed of.

"I haven't said a word to Robert about it, and of course I won't now."
It was a very simple thing to say, yet some way he felt a better man in
his own eyes because she had asked him. He did not claim that he had
paid no attention or forgotten, for he felt just now that all her words
were so supremely worthy of deference that he only wished he could
remember more of what she had let fall when her heart was stirred. "Of
course," he said, "I didn't know it had been Robert, or I would have
gone back for him."

He floundered on into the midst of excuses, and her embarrassment had
time to pass away, with it the blush on her face, and he felt as if a
sun had somewhere set.

"Th