[Greek text] MEHDEN AGAN

Has any person of any nation or language, found out and given to
the world any occupation, work, diversion, or pursuit, more
subtlely dangerous to the susceptible youth of both sexes than
that of nutting in pairs. If so, who, where, what? A few years
later in life perhaps district visiting, and attending schools
together, may in certain instances be more fatal; but, in the
first bright days of youth, a day's nutting against the world! A
day in autumn, warm enough to make sitting in the sheltered nooks
in the woods, where ever the sunshine lies, very pleasant, and
yet not too warm to make exercise uncomfortable--two young people
who have been thrown much together, one of whom is conscious of
the state of his feelings towards the other, and is, moreover,
aware that his hours are numbered, and that in a few days at
furthest they will be separated for many months, that persons in
authority on both sides are beginning to suspect something (as is
apparent from the difficulty they have had in getting away
together at all on this same afternoon) here is a conjunction of
persons and circumstances, if ever there was one in the world,
which is surely likely to end in a catastrophe. Indeed, so
obvious to the meanest capacity is the danger of the situation,
that, as Tom had, in his own mind, staked his character for
resolution with his private self on the keeping of his secret
till after he was of age, it is hard to conceive how he can have
been foolish enough to get himself into a hazel copse alone with
Miss Mary on the earliest day he could manage it after the
arrival of the Porters, on their visit to Mr. and Mrs. Brown.
That is to say, it would be hard to conceive, if it didn't just
happen to be the most natural thing in the world.

For the first twenty-four hours after their meeting in the home
of his fathers, the two young people, and Tom in particular, felt
very uncomfortable. Mary, being a young lady of very high
spirits, and, as our readers may probably have discovered, much
given to that kind of conversation which borders as nearly upon
what men commonly call chaff as a well-bred girl can venture on,
was annoyed to find herself quite at fault in all her attempts to
get her old antagonist of Commemoration to show fight. She felt
in a moment how changed his manner was, and thought it by no
means changed for the better. As for Tom, he felt foolish and shy
at first, to an extent which drove him hal