I gazed at her in silence. Once more there stole over me a strange feeling of awe, born of the conviction that Joyce had floated slowly away from me on the bosom of a stream that was to me unknown. Whither did it lead, and what was it like? What was this "being in love," of which I had dreamed of late—for her if not for myself? I laughed constrainedly.
"Well, I never was in love," said I, "and perhaps I never shall be. But I feel pretty sure that when a girl loves a man and he loves her, being parted must be like going about without a piece of one's own self. No, Joyce, you can't deceive me. I know that you want to see him every hour and every minute of your life, and that when you don't something goes wrong inside you all the while."
Joyce sighed gently, and drew her shawl around her. "You're so impetuous," sighed she. "Liking one person doesn't make one forget every one else."
"Liking, no," said I, and then I stopped.
The marsh-land had grown dark with a passing cloud, and the aspens on the cliff shivered in the rising wind. A window opened in the house behind, and Deborah's voice came calling to us across the lawn.
"Well, whatever you two must needs go catching your deaths of cold out there for, I don't know," cried she, as we came up to her. "And not so much as a young man to keep you company! Oh, there's two dismal faces!" laughed she, as I pushed past her. "Well, I was wiser in my time. The men never gave me no thoughts—good nor bad."
"No, you never got any one to mind you then as Reuben minds you now," cried I.
But Joyce stopped the retort by asking what we were wanted for.
"There's company in the parlor," answered she, speaking to me still. "The squire's come to bid Miss Joyce good-bye, and there's your friend Mr. Hoad."