y McAlery had begun to complain: and I gathered that Sophy was
Nancy's confidante. The other girls had begun to gossip. It was Nancy who
conceived the brilliant idea--the more delightful because she said
nothing about it to me--of making use of Sophy. She would leave school
with Sophy, and I waited on the corner near the McAlery house. Poor
Sophy! She was always of those who piped while others danced. In those
days she had two straw-coloured pigtails, and her plain, faithful face is
before me as I write. She never betrayed to me the excitement that filled
her at being the accomplice of our romance.

Gossip raged, of course. Far from being disturbed, we used it, so to
speak, as a handle for our love-making, which was carried on in an
inferential rather than a direct fashion. Were they saying that we were
lovers? Delightful! We laughed at one another in the sunshine.... At last
we achieved the great adventure of a clandestine meeting and went for a
walk in the afternoon, avoiding the houses of our friends. I've forgotten
which of us had the boldness to propose it. The crocuses and tulips had
broken the black mould, the flower beds in the front yards were beginning
to blaze with scarlet and yellow, the lawns had turned a living green.
What did we talk about? The substance has vanished, only the flavour
remains.

One awoke of a morning to the twittering of birds, to walk to school
amidst delicate, lace-like shadows of great trees acloud with old gold:
the buds lay curled like tiny feathers on the pavements. Suddenly the
shade was dense, the sunlight white and glaring, the odour of lilacs
heavy in the air, spring in all its fulness had come,--spring and Nancy.
Just so subtly, yet with the same seeming suddenness had budded and come
to leaf and flower a perfect understanding, which nevertheless remained
undefined. This, I had no doubt, was my fault, and due to the
incomprehensible shyness her presence continued to inspire. Although we
did not altogether abandon our secret trysts, we began to meet in more
natural ways; there were garden parties and picnics where we strayed
together through the woods and fields, pausing to tear off, one by one,
the petals of a daisy, "She loves me, she loves me not." I never ventured
to kiss her; I always thought afterwards I might have done so, she had
seemed so willing, her eyes had shone so expectantly as I sat beside her
on the grass; nor can I tell why I desired to kiss her save that this