es demanded
that he should speak he could speak his mind freely, with manly vigor,
and sometimes not without a certain manly grace.

How did Fanny know that it was coming? She did know it, though he had
said nothing to her beyond his usual parish communications. He was often
with her in the two schools; often returned with her in the sweet Spring
evenings along the lane that led back to the rectory from Cumberly
Green; often inspected with her the little amounts of parish charities
and entries of pence collected from such parents as could pay. He had
never reverted to that other subject. But yet Fanny knew that it was
coming, and when she had questioned Harry about his troubles she had
been thinking also of her own.

It was now the middle of May, and the Spring was giving way to the early
Summer almost before the Spring had itself arrived. It is so, I think,
in these latter years. The sharpness of March prolongs itself almost
through April, and then, while we are still hoping for the Spring, there
falls upon us suddenly a bright, dangerous, delicious gleam of Summer.
The lane from Cumberly Green was no longer muddy, and Fanny could go
backward and forward between the parsonage and her distant school
without that wading for which feminine apparel is so unsuited. One
evening, just as she had finished her work, Mr. Saul's head appeared at
the school-door, and he asked her whether she were about to return home.
As soon as she saw his eye and heard his voice, she feared that the day
was come. She was prepared with no new answer, and could only give the
answer that she had given before. She had always told herself that it
was impossible; and as to all other questions, about her own heart or
such like, she had put such questions away from her as being
unnecessary, and, perhaps, unseemly. The thing was impossible, and
should therefore be put away out of thought, as a matter completed and
at an end. But now the time was come, and she almost wished that she had
been more definite in her own resolutions.

"Yes, Mr. Saul, I have just done."

"I will walk with you, if you will let me." Then Fanny spoke some words
of experienced wisdom to two or three girls, in order that she might
show to them, to him, and to herself that she was quite collected. She
lingered in the room for a few minutes, and was very wise and very
experienced. "I am quite ready now, Mr. Saul." So saying, she came forth
upon the green lane, and he followed her.