Lassie turned her eyes to the eyes of the other.
"It's queer, Alva; you talk as if you were crazy, but I know you're not crazy, and yet I'm worried."
"You don't need to be worried,—"
"I'll try not to be." She raised her sweet eyes to her friend's face as she spoke, and her friend bent and kissed her. "Don't keep me waiting much longer," she pleaded.
They were passing through the little, tree-grown way which led out on the brow of the hill. All the wide, radiant wonder of that October morning unrolled before them there. For an instant Lassie stood entranced, forgetting all else; and then:
"Tell me now!" she cried.
"Let us sit down here," Alva said, pointing to a rough seat made out of a plank laid across two stumps. They sat down side by side.
"Alva, it seems as if I cannot wait another minute; I must know it all now. Tell me who he is, first; is it some one that I know?"
Alva's eyes rested on the wide radiance beyond.
"You know of him, dear," she replied quietly.