“They say down at Bottoms,” he went on, “that she’s gone moonstruck about Mr. Jonathan, an’ young Adam Doolittle swears he saw them walkin’ together on the other side of old orchard hill.”

“I thought she was too sensible a girl for that.”

“They’re none of ’em too sensible.  I’m the only man I ever saw who never had a woman moonstruck about him—­an’ it makes me feel kind of lonesome to hear the others talk.  It’s a painful experience, I reckon, but it must be a fruitful source of conversation with a man’s wife, if he ever marries.  Has it ever struck you,” he inquired, “that the chief thing lackin’ in marriage is conversation?”

“I don’t know—­I’ve never thought about it.”

“Now, I have often an’ over again, ma bein’ sech a silent person to live with.  It’s the silence that stands between Blossom Revercomb an’ me—­an’ her brother Abel is another glum one of the same sort, isn’t he?”

“Do you think so?  I hadn’t noticed it.”

“An’ you seein’ so much of him!  Well, all folks don’t observe things as sharply as I do—­’twas a way I was born with.  But I passed him at the fork as I came up, an’ he was standin’ just as solemn an’ silent while Mr. Chamberlayne, over from Applegate, was askin’ him questions.”

“What questions?  Did you hear them?”

“Oh, about his mother an’ prospects of the grist-mill.  The lawyer went on afterward to the big house to do business with Mr. Jonathan.”

They had reached the point in the road where a bridle path from the mill ran into it; and in the centre of the field, which was woven in faint spring colours like an unfinished tapestry, Molly descried the figure of Abel moving rapidly toward her.  Dismissing her companion, she ran forward with her warm blood suffusing her face.

“Abel,” she said, “tell me that you are happy,” and lifted her mouth to his kiss.

“Something in the spring makes me wild for you, Molly.  I can’t live without you another year, and hear the blue birds and see the green burst out so sudden.  There is a terrible loneliness in the spring, darling.”

“But I’m here, Abel.”

“Yes, you’re here, but you aren’t near enough, for I’m never sure of you.  That’s the cause of it—­shall I ever be sure of you even after we are married?  You’ve got different blood in you, Molly—­blood that doesn’t run quiet,—­and it makes me afraid.  Do you know I’ve been to look at the pines this morning, and I am all one big ache to begin on the house.”

“But you’re happy—­say you’re happy.”

“How can I be happy, when I’m wanting you with every drop of my blood and yet never certain that I shall have you.  The devil has a lot to do with it, I reckon—­for there are times when I am half blind with jealousy and doubt of you.  Did you ever kiss a man before me, Molly?”

She laughed, moved by an instinct to torment him.  “You wouldn’t have asked me that three months ago, and you wouldn’t have cared.”