d then he smiled,
and then they were quiet a long time together, and then after some
more kindness, it was late, and then Jeff left her.

Jeff Campbell, all these months, had never told his good mother
anything about Melanctha Herbert. Somehow he always kept his seeing
her so much now, to himself. Melanctha too had never had any of her
other friends meet him. They always acted together, these two, as if
their being so much together was a secret, but really there was no
one who would have made it any harder for them. Jeff Campbell did not
really know how it had happened that they were so secret. He did not
know if it was what Melanctha wanted. Jeff had never spoken to her
at all about it. It just seemed as if it were well understood between
them that nobody should know that they were so much together. It
was as if it were agreed between them, that they should be alone by
themselves always, and so they would work out together what they meant
by what they were always saying to each other.

Jefferson often spoke to Melanctha about his good mother. He never
said anything about whether Melanctha would want to meet her.
Jefferson never quite understood why all this had happened so, in
secret. He never really knew what it was that Melanctha really wanted.
In all these ways he just, by his nature, did, what he sort of felt
Melanctha wanted. And so they continued to be alone and much together,
and now it had come to be the spring time, and now they had all
out-doors to wander.

They had many days now when they were very happy. Jeff every day found
that he really liked Melanctha better. Now surely he was beginning to
have real, deep feeling in him. And still he loved to talk himself out
to Melanctha, and he loved to tell her how good it all was to him, and
how he always loved to be with her, and to tell her always all about
it. One day, now Jeff arranged, that Sunday they would go out and have
a happy, long day in the bright fields, and they would be all day just
alone together. The day before, Jeff was called in to see Jane Harden.

Jane Harden was very sick almost all day and Jeff Campbell did
everything he could to make her better. After a while Jane became more
easy and then she began to talk to Jeff about Melanctha. Jane did not
know how much Jeff was now seeing of Melanctha. Jane these days never
saw Melanctha. Jane began to talk of the time when she first knew
Melanctha. Jane began to tell how in these days Melanctha ha