lackin' in marriage is conversation?"

"I don't know--I've never thought about it."

"Now, I have often an' over again, ma bein' sech a silent person to live
with. It's the silence that stands between Blossom Revercomb an' me--an'
her brother Abel is another glum one of the same sort, isn't he?"

"Do you think so? I hadn't noticed it."

"An' you seein' so much of him! Well, all folks don't observe things as
sharply as I do--'twas a way I was born with. But I passed him at the
fork as I came up, an' he was standin' just as solemn an' silent while
Mr. Chamberlayne, over from Applegate, was askin' him questions."

"What questions? Did you hear them?"

"Oh, about his mother an' prospects of the grist-mill. The lawyer went
on afterward to the big house to do business with Mr. Jonathan."

They had reached the point in the road where a bridle path from the mill
ran into it; and in the centre of the field, which was woven in faint
spring colours like an unfinished tapestry, Molly descried the figure
of Abel moving rapidly toward her. Dismissing her companion, she ran
forward with her warm blood suffusing her face.

"Abel," she said, "tell me that you are happy," and lifted her mouth to
his kiss.

"Something in the spring makes me wild for you, Molly. I can't live
without you another year, and hear the blue birds and see the green
burst out so sudden. There is a terrible loneliness in the spring,
darling."

"But I'm here, Abel."

"Yes, you're here, but you aren't near enough, for I'm never sure of
you. That's the cause of it--shall I ever be sure of you even after
we are married? You've got different blood in you, Molly--blood that
doesn't run quiet,--and it makes me afraid. Do you know I've been to
look at the pines this morning, and I am all one big ache to begin on
the house."

"But you're happy--say you're happy."

"How can I be happy, when I'm wanting you with every drop of my blood
and yet never certain that I shall have you. The devil has a lot to
do with it, I reckon--for there are times when I am half blind with
jealousy and doubt of you. Did you ever kiss a man before me, Molly?"

She laughed, moved by an instinct to torment him. "You wouldn't have
asked me that three months ago, and you wouldn't have cared."

"It's different now. I've got a right to know."

"You'll never know anything because you have the 'right' to," she
returned impatiently. "I hate the word--how silly you are, Abel."

"If you'd