pered pitch had her approval especially here, where not only was
there the wild life of grove and thicket to look and listen for, but a
subdued ripple of other girls' voices and the stir of other draperies
came more than once along the path and through the bushes. But there are
degrees and degrees, and in this walk his tones had gradually sunk to
such pure wooing that "Herrick" was no protection and she could reply
only with irrelevant pleasantries.

At length he halted, and with a lover's distress showing beneath his
smile, asked:

"Why cannot you be serious with me--Barbara?"

In make-believe aimlessness she swept the wood with a reconnoitring
glance, and then with eyes of maidenly desperation fixed on him, said,
tremblingly:

"Because, Mr. Fair, I know what you want to say, and I don't want you to
say it."

He turned their slow step toward a low rock in an open space near the
water's edge, where no one could come near them unseen. "Would you let
me say it if we were down in Dixie?" he asked. "Is it because you are so
far from home?"

"No, Mr. Fair, I told you I really have no home. I'm sorry I did; I'm
afraid it's led you to this, when everything I said--about taking myself
into my own care and all--was said to keep you from it."

The lover shook his head. "You cannot. You must not. To be that kind is
to be unkind. Sit here. You do not know exactly what I have to say; sit
here, will you not? and while I stand beside you let me do both of us
the simple honor to seal with right words what I have so long said in
behavior."

Barbara hesitated. "O Mr. Fair, what need is there? Your behavior's
always borne the seal of its own perfection. How could I answer you? If
you only wanted any other answer but just the one you want, I could give
it--the kindest answer in the world, the most unbounded praise--O I
could give it with my whole heart and soul! Why, Mr. Fair"--as she sadly
smiled she let him gaze into the furthest depth of her eyes--"as far as
I can see, you seem to me to be ab-so-lute-ly fault-less."

The young man caught his breath as if for some word of fond passion, but
the unfaltering eyes prevented him. As she began again to speak,
however, they fell.

"And that's not because I can't see men's faults. I see them so plainly,
and show so plainly I see them, that sometimes I wonder--" She left the
wonder implied while she pinched lichens from the stone. He began in a
tender monotone to say:

"All the mor