“Let me have a piece of it here in my hand.”
“How odd that you should be so fond of flowers!”
“Is it? Sweet blooms only. May be you would not approve of such a love. I like to crush them and have them about me. Not but what I admire them in vases, too, but then they do not come into my very life.”
“Or die for you.”
I had said it, and then I paused in a great tremble, thinking of the other death that came through love, greater than which hath no man.
“Miss Endicott,” he said, slowly, “are you very religious?”
I colored, and turned my face away; then I thought of “confessing before men.” What should make me afraid here, except the sense of personal unworthiness?
“I try a little. I have not gone very far in the way.”
“I know some people who are very religious,” he went on, “and I—dislike them. That was another reason why I did not want to come here—because your father was a clergyman. But you always appear to have such nice, enjoyable times. You talk over everything with him and your mother.”
“Why should we not? It would be strange if they were not interested in all that concerns us. And bringing home a bit of pleasant talk or some bright and amusing incident is like adding a sheaf to the general granary. Does it not seem as if each one ought to contribute to the fund of happiness?”