'Why think about it?' said Robert. 'You would have married somebody else, I suppose.'
He said it in a matter-of-fact sort of way, and for a moment Dolly's eyebrows seemed to darken over her eyes. It was a mere nothing, the passing shadow of a thought.
'You are right,' said Dolly, wistfully. 'It is no use thinking how unhappy one might have been. Have you ever been very unhappy, Robert?' Now that she was so happy, Dolly seemed, for the first time, to realise what sorrow might be.
'A certain young lady made me very unhappy one day not long ago,' said Robert, 'when she tried to freeze me up with a snowball.'
This was not what Dolly meant: she was in earnest, and he answered her with a joke; she wanted a sign, and no sign was given to her.
They had just reached home, when Robert said, with his hand on the bell: 'This has not been unhappy, has it, Dolly? We shall have a great many more walks together when I can spare the time. But you must talk to me more, and not be so shy, dearest.'
Something flew by as he spoke, and went fluttering into the ivy.
'That was a bat,' said Dolly, shrinking, while Robert stood shaking his umbrella-stick among the ivy leaves; but it was too dark to see anything distinctly.
'I hope,' said Robert, sentimentally, 'to come and see you constantly when this term is over. Then we shall know more of each other, Dora.'
'Don't we know each other?' asked Dolly, with one of her quick glances; 'I think I know you quite well, Robert—better than I know myself almost,' she added, with a sigh.