"I do try--really I do try hard," she said, with quite a piteous
earnestness,--"but I can't feel what isn't HERE,"--and she pressed
both hands on her breast--"I care more for Roger the horse, and
Cupid the dove, than I do for you! It's quite awful of me--but
there it is! I love--I simply adore"--and she threw out her arms
with an embracing gesture--"all the trees and plants and birds!--
and everything about the farm and the farmhouse itself--it's just
the sweetest home in the world! There's not a brick or a stone in
it that I would not want to kiss if I had to leave it--but I never
felt that way for you! And yet I like you very, very much, Robin!
--I wish I could see you married to some nice girl, only I don't
know one really nice enough."

"Nor do I!" he answered, with a laugh, "except yourself! But never
mind, dear!--we won't talk of it any more, just now at any rate.
I'm a patient sort of chap. I can wait!"

"How long?" she queried, with a wondering glance.

"All my life!" he answered, simply.

A silence fell between them. Some inward touch of embarrassment
troubled the girl, for the colour came and went flatteringly in
her soft cheeks and her eyes drooped under his fervent gaze. The
glowing light of the sky deepened, and the sun began to sink in a
mist of bright orange, which was reflected over all the visible
landscape with a warm and vivid glory. That strange sense of
beauty and mystery which thrills the air with the approach of
evening, made all the simple pastoral scene a dream of