the piece of it you sent me in the winter."

"Oh! those ferns? I'm glad you liked them. There's something nice
and plucky about those little things, isn't there?"

It was every word he could think of to reply. He had a provoked
perception that was not altogether nice and plucky, of himself, just
then. But that was because the snow was still unlifted from him. He
was under a burden of coldness and constraint. Somebody ought to
come and take it away. It was time. The spring, that would not be
kept back, was here.

He had not said a word to Sylvie about her mother. How could he
speak of what had left her alone in the world, and not say that he
wanted to make a new world for her? That he had longed for it
through all her troubles, and that this, and nothing else, was what
he was keeping his probation for?

So they came to Tillington at last, and there had been between them
only little drifting talk of the moment, that told nothing.

After all, do we not, for a great part, drift through life so,
giving each other crumbs off the loaf that will only seem to break
in that paltry way? And by and by, when the journey is over, do we
not wonder that we could not have given better and more at a time?
Yet the crumbs have the leaven and the sweetness of the loaf in
them; the commonest little wayside things are charged full of
whatever is really within us. God's own love is broken small for us.
"This is my Body, broken for you."

If life were nothing but what gets phrased and substanced, the world
might as well be rolled up and laid away again in darkness.

Sylvie had a handful of checks; Rodney took them from her, and went
out to the end of the platform to find the boxes. Two vehicles had
been driven over from Hill-hope to meet her; an open spring-wagon
for the luggage, and a chaise-top buggy to convey herself.

Trunks, boxes, and the great padlocked basket were speedily piled
upon the wagon; then the two men who had come jumped up together to
the front seat of the same, and Sylvie saw that it was left for her
and Rodney to proceed together for the seven-mile drive.

Rodney came back to her with an alert and felicitous air. How could
he help the falling out of this? Of course he could not ride upon
the wagon and leave a farm-boy to charioteer Sylvie.

"Shall you be afraid of me?" he asked, as he tossed in his valise
for a footstool, and carefully bestowed Sylvie's shawl against the
back, to cushion her more comfortably. "