not a vestige of a smile on his face. He does not look at
me as he speaks; his eyes are on the long, dead knots of the colorless
grass at his feet; in his expression despondency and preoccupation
strive for supremacy.

"Have you made your head ache?" I say, gently stealing my hand into his;
"there is nothing that addles the brains like muddling over accounts, is
there?"

_Am_ I awake? _Can_ I believe it? He has dropped my hand, as if he
disliked the touch of it.

"No, thanks, no. I have no headache," he answers, hastily.

Another little silence. We are marching quickly along, as if our great
object were to get our _tete-a-tete_ over. As we came, we dawdled, stood
still to listen to the lark, to look at the wool-soft cloud-heaps piled
in the west--on any trivial excuse indeed; but now all these things are
changed.

"Did you talk of business _all_ the time?" I ask, by-and-by, with timid
curiosity.

It is _not_ my fancy; he does plainly hesitate.

"Not quite _all_," he answers, in a low voice, and still looking away
from me.

"About _what_, then?" I persist, in a voice through whose counterfeit
playfulness I myself too plainly hear the unconquerable tremulousness;
"may not I hear?--or is it a secret?"

He does not answer; it seems to me that he is considering what response
to make.

"Perhaps," say I, still with a poor assumption of lightness and gayety,
"perhaps you were talking of--of old times."

He laughs a little, but _whose_ laugh has he borrowed? in that dry,
harsh tone there is nothing of my Roger's mellow mirth!

"Not we; old times must take care of themselves; one has enough to do
with the new ones, I find."

"Did she--did she say any thing to you about--about _Algy_,
then?"--hesitatingly.

"We did not mention his name."

There is something so abrupt and trenchant in his tone that I have not
the spirit to pursue my inquiries any further. In deep astonishment and
still deeper mortification, I pursue my way in silence.

Suddenly Roger comes to a stand-still.

"Nancy!" he says, in a voice that is more like his own, stopping and
laying his hands on my shoulders; while in his eyes is something of his
old kindness; yet not quite the old kindness either; there is more of
unwilling, rueful yearning in them than there ever was in that--"Nancy,
how old are you?--nineteen, is it not?"

"Very nearly twenty," reply I, cheerfully, for he has called me "Nancy,"
and I hail it as a sign of returning fine w