Yes," she acquiesced; "and they are a bit shabby, too. You are going
down, Grif. You never used to be shabby. None of us were ever exactly
that, though we used to grumble sometimes. We used to grumble, not
because other people had things, but because we had n't them."

"I am getting hardened, I suppose," bitterly. "And it is hardly to be
wondered at."

"Hardened!" She stopped him that moment, and stood before him, holding
his arm and looking up at him. "Hardened!" she repeated. "Grif, if you
say that again, I will never forgive you. What is the good of our love
for each other if it won't keep our hearts soft? When we get hardened we
shall love each other no longer. What have we told each other all these
years? Have n't we said that so long as we had one another we could bear
anything, and not envy other people? It was n't all talk and sentiment,
was it? It was n't on _my_ part, Grif. I meant it then, and I mean it
now, though I know there are many good, kind-hearted people in the world
who would not understand it, and would say I was talking unpractical
rubbish, if they heard me. Hardened! Grif, while you have me, and I have
you, and there is nothing on our two consciences? Why, it sounds,"--with
another most dubious shake of her small head,--"it sounds as if you
would n't care about the house at Putney!"

He was conquered, of course; before she had spoken a dozen words he
had been conquered; but this figure of his not caring for the house at
Putney broke him utterly. He did not look very hardened when he answered
her.

"Dolly," he said, "you are an angel! I have told you so before, and it
may be a proof of the barrenness of my resources to tell you so again,
but it is true. God forgive me, my precious! I should like to see the
man whose heart could harden while such a woman loved him."

It was a pretty sight to see her put her hands on his shoulders, and
stand on tiptoe to kiss him, in her honest, earnest way, without waiting
for him to ask her.

"Ah!" she said, "I knew it wasn't true," and then, still letting her
hands rest on his shoulders, she burst forth in her tender, impulsive
way again. "Grif," she said, "I don't think I am very wise, and I know
I am not very thoughtful. I do things often that it would be better
to leave undone,--I am fond of making the Philistines admire me, and I
sometimes tease you; but, dear old fellow, right deep down at the bottom
of my heart," faltering slightly, "I do--_do_ want to