absently against her lips. "You don't seem at all impatient to get away
from Ashurst, Giff," she said. "If I had been you, I should have gone to
Lockhaven a month ago; everything is so sleepy here. Oh, if I were a man,
wouldn't I just go out into the world!"

"Well, Lockhaven can scarcely be called the world," Gifford answered in
his slow way.

"But I should think you would want to go because it will be such a
pleasure to Helen to have you there," she said.

Gifford smiled; he had twisted his braid of grass into a ring, and
had pushed it on the smallest of his big fingers, and was turning it
thoughtfully about. "I don't believe," he said, "that it will make the
slightest difference to Helen whether I am there or not. She has Mr.
Ward."

"Oh," Lois said, "I hardly think even Mr. Ward can take the place of
father, and the rectory, and me. I know it will make Helen happier to
have somebody from home near her."

"No," the young man said, with a quiet persistence, "it won't make the
slightest difference, Lois. She'll have the person she loves best in the
world; and with the person one loves best one could be content in the
desert of Sahara."

"You seem to have a very high opinion of John Ward," Lois said, a thread
of anger in her voice.

"I have," said Gifford; "but that isn't what I mean. It's love, not John