n such a day as this. You know how displeased and anxious it
would make them all.'

She sighed, but obeyed; stooping a little, she came out, and stood
upright, opposite to me in the lonely, leafless orchard. Her face
looked so meek and so sad that I felt as if I ought to beg her pardon
for my necessarily authoritative words.

'Sometimes I feel the house so close,' she said; 'and I used to sit
under the wood-stack when I was a child. It was very kind of you, but
there was no need to come after me. I don't catch cold easily.'

'Come with me into this cow-house, Phillis. I have got something to say
to you; and I can't stand this cold, if you can.

I think she would have fain run away again; but her fit of energy was
all spent. She followed me unwillingly enough that I could see. The
place to which I took her was full of the fragrant breath of the cows,
and was a little warmer than the outer air. I put her inside, and stood
myself in the doorway, thinking how I could best begin. At last I
plunged into it.

'I must see that you don't get cold for more reasons than one; if you
are ill, Holdsworth will be so anxious and miserable out there' (by
which I meant Canada)--

She shot one penetrating look at me, and then turned her face away with
a slightly impatient movement. If she could have run away then she
would, but I held the means of exit in my own power. 'In for a penny,
in for a pound,' thought I, and I went on rapidly, anyhow.

'He talked so much about you, just before he left--that night after he
had been here, you know--and you had given him those flowers.' She put
her hands up to hide her face, but she was listening now--listening
with all her ears. 'He had never spoken much about you before, but the
sudden going away unlocked his heart, and he told me how he loved you,
and how he hoped on his return that you might be his wife.'

'Don't,' said she, almost gasping out the word, which she had tried
once or twice before to speak; but her voice had been choked. Now she
put her hand backwards; she had quite turned away from me, and felt for
mine. She gave it a soft lingering pressure; and then she put her arms
down on the wooden division, and laid her head on it, and cried quiet
tears. I did not understand her at once, and feared lest I had mistaken
the whole case, and only annoyed her. I went up to her. 'Oh, Phillis! I
am so sorry--I thought you would, perhaps, have cared to hear it; he
did talk so feelingly, as i