seeing Hazel alone?

'That fellow dogs her steps,' he said.

The transfigured slopes of the mountain were, it seemed to Edward, a
suitable place for a thing he wished to tell Hazel.

'Hazel,' he said, 'if you ever feel that you would rather have a
husband than a brother, you have only to say so.'

Hazel flushed. Although it was such a muted passion that sounded in his
voice, it stirred her. Since she had known Reddin, her ignorance had
come to recognize the sound of it, and she had also begun to flush
easily.

If Edward had understood women better, he would have seen that this
speech of his was a mistake; for even if a woman knows whether she
wishes for a husband, she will never tell him so.

They turned home in a constrained silence. Foxy, frightened by a covey
of partridges, created a diversion by pulling her cord from Hazel's
inattentive hand and setting off for the parsonage.

'Oh! she'll be bound to go to the woods!' cried Hazel, beginning to
run. 'Do 'ee see if she's in tub, Ed'ard, and I'll go under the trees
and holla.'

Reddin was startled when he saw Hazel, who had out-distanced Edward,
making straight for his hiding-place. She came running between the
boles with an easy grace, an independence that drove him frantic. A