Meantime, prolonged doubt and suspense now goaded with their intolerable stings the active spirit that chill misgivings had at first benumbed.  Spurred into action by these torments, David had already watched several days in the neighborhood of Font Abbey, determined to speak to Miss Fountain, and find out whether he had given her offense; for this was still his uppermost idea.  Having failed in this attempt at an interview with her, he was now meditating a more resolute course, and he paced the little gravel-walk at home debating in himself the pros and cons.  Raising his head suddenly, he saw his sister walking slowly at the other end of the path.  She was coming toward him, but her eyes were bent thoughtfully on the ground.  David slipped behind some bushes, not to have his unhappiness and his meditations interrupted.  The lover and the lunatic have points in common.

He had been there some time when a grave little voice spoke quietly to him from the lawn.  “David, I want to speak to you.”  David came out.

“Here am I.”

“Oh, I knew where you were.  Don’t do that again, sir, please, or you’ll catch it.”

“Oh, I didn’t think you saw me,” said David, somewhat confusedly.

“What has that to do with it, stupid?  David,” continued she, assuming a benevolent, cheerful, and somewhat magnificent nonchalance, “I sometimes wonder you don’t come to me with your troubles.  I might advise you as well as here and there one.  But perhaps you think now, because I am naturally gay, I am not sensible.  You mustn’t go by that altogether.  Manner is very deceiving.  The most foolishly conducted men and women ever I met were as grave as judges, and as demure as cats after cream.  Bless you, there is folly in every heart.  Your slow ones bottle it up for use against the day wisdom shall be most needed.  My sort let it fizz out at their mouths in their daily talk, and keep their good sense for great occasions, like the present.”

“Have we drifted among the proverbs of Solomon?” inquired David, dryly.  “No need to make so many tacks, Eve.  Haven’t I seen your sense and profited by it—­I and one or two more?  Who but you has steered the house this ten years, and commanded the lubberly crew?"*

* The reader must not be misled by the familiar phraseology of these two speakers to suppose that anything the least droll or humorous was intended by either of them at any part of this singular dialogue.  Their hearts were sad and their faces grave.

“And then again, David, where the heart is concerned, young women are naturally in advance of young men.”

“God knows.  He made them both.  I don’t.”

“Why, all the world knows it.  And then, besides, I am five years older than you.

“So mother says; but I don’t know how to believe it.  No one would say so to look at you.”

“I’ll tell you, David.  Folk that have small features look a deal younger than their years; and you know poor father used to say my face was the pattern of a flat-iron.  So nobody gives me my age; but I am five good years older than you, only you needn’t go and tell the town crier.”