ning leaves thrust themselves through in
patches. Birds were singing beneath, feeling the warmth of the sun,
scarcely hid. The young leaves and blossoms steeping in the mist sent
up a delicious odor.

"I like Surrey better and better," he said; "the atmosphere suits me."

"Oh, I am glad," answered Verry. "I could never go away. It is not
beautiful, I know; in fact, it is meager when it comes to be talked
of; but there are suggestions here which occasionally stimulate me."

"Verry, can you keep people away from me when I live here?"

"I do not like that feeling in you."

"I like fishermen."

"And a boat?"

"Yes, I'll have a boat."

"I shall never go out with you."

"Cass will. I shall cruise with her, and you, in your house, need not
see us depart. Eric the Red made excursions in this region. We will
skirt the shores, which are the same, nearly, as when he sailed from
them, with his Northmen; and the ancient barnacles will think, when
they see her fair hair, which she will let ripple around her stately
shoulders, that he has come back with his bride."

Verry looked with delight at him and then at me. "Her long, yellow
hair and her stately shoulders," she repeated.

"Will you go?" he asked.

"Of course," I answered, going downstairs. I happened to look back
on the way. His arm was round Verry, but he was looking after me. He
withdrew it as our eyes met, and came down; but she remained, looking
from the window. We went into the parlor, and I shut the door.

"Now then," I said.

He took a note from his pocket and gave it to me.

I broke its seal, and read: "Tell Ben, before you can reflect upon it,
that _I_ will go abroad, and then repent of it,--as I shall. Desmond."

"'Tell Ben,'" I repeated aloud, "'that _I_ will go abroad. Desmond.'"

"Do you guess, as he does, that my reason for going was that I might
be kept aloof from all sight and sound of you and him? In the result
toward which I saw _you_ drive I could have no part."

"Stay; I know that he will go."

"You do not know. Nor do you know what such a man is when--" checking
himself.

"He is in love?"

"If you choose to call it that."

"I do."

All there was to say should be said now; but I felt more agitated
than was my wont. These feelings, not according with my housewifely
condition, upset me. I looked at him; he began to walk about, taking
up a book, which he leaned his head over, and whose covers he bent
back till they cracked.

"Yo