ep
yourself so secret all these months? I couldn't have. However can girls
keep secrets so long?" And the answer was, "They can't keep them a
single instant if you come and ask them--but you didn't come!" "What a
fool I was!" whispered the first voice, but whose Martin could not for
the life of him imagine. Yet he was sure that the other was Jennifer's.
And again he heard that misleading sound which seemed to be something,
yet, when he sought it, was nothing.

And now he heard another unknown whisperer say, "You should have seen
my drills in the wheatfield last April! How the drill did wobble! Why,
I was that upset, any girl could have thrown straighter than I drilled
that wheat." And a second whisperer replied, "It MUST have been a
sight, then, for girls throw crookeder than swallows fly!" This was
surely Jessica; but who was the first speaker?

He was as strange to Martin as another one who whispered, "It was the
silence got on my nerves most--it was having nobody to listen to of an
evening. Of course there were the lads, but they never talk to the
point." "I often fear," whispered a second voice, "that I talk too much
at random." "Good Lord! you couldn't, if you talked for ever!" Each of
these two cases ended as the first two had ended; and for Martin in as
little result.

He hastened to another part of the orchard where the whispers were
falling fast and fierce. "It was Adam's fault after all!" "No, I've
found out that it was Eve's fault!" "But I've been looking it up." "And
I've been thinking it over." "Rubbish! it WAS Adam's fault." "It was
NOT Adam's fault. What can a stupid little boy know about it?" "I'm a
month older than you are." "I don't care if you are. It was Eve's
fault." "Well, don't make a fuss if it was." "Wasn't it?" "Stuff!"
"WASN'T it?" "Oh, all right, if you like, it was Eve's fault." "Here's
an apple for you," said Joscelyn quite distinctly. "Oh, ripping! but
I'd rather have a--" "Sh-h! RUN!" Martin was just too late. "Rather
have a what?" said Martin to himself.

He was beginning to feel lonely. His hair was wet with rain. He hadn't
seen a milkmaid for an hour. He prowled low in the grass hoping to
catch one unawares. In the swing he saw a shadow--or was it two
shadows? It looked like one. And yet--

One half of the shadow whispered, "Do you like my new corduroys?" "Ever
so much," whispered the other half. "I'm rather bucked about them
myself," whispered the first half, "or ought I to say