over Doorke's shoulder, allowed her golden curls to play in his eyes and
in this way they walked out, down the road, towards the wood. Here they
were all alone with the birds twittering in the trees and the crickets
chirping in the grass beside the ditch.

Everywhere, as far as they could see, was corn and green fields and
sunshine and stillness. They strolled down the long, cheerful road.
Doorke held his arm round Horieneke's tight-laced little waist and
listened to all the new things which his cousin described so prettily;
and she too felt a great delight in having this boy, with his brown eyes
and his lean shoulder-blades, beside her, listening to her and looking at
her and understanding her ever so much better than her rough little
brothers did. She would have liked to walk on all her life like this, in
that golden sunshine, telling him how she had read that beautiful prayer
in church this morning ... and about the priest's sermon ... and those
pretty angels with their gold wings, who had walked up and down so calmly
and placidly; about her dread during the communion-mass and her fear and
sorrow because Our Lord had not spoken in her little heart. And so,
talking and listening, they came to the wood. It looked so pleasant under
those pollard alders in the shade and farther on in the dark, among the
spruces, where the light filtered through in meagre rays, after that long
walk in the blinding sun.

"Let's go in!" said Doorke and was on the point of going down the little
path that ran beside the ditch, in among the trees.

"We mustn't!" said Horieneke; and she clutched him by the arm.

Her face grew very serious and she wrinkled her forehead: