“You shall go back at once, if you wish it,” he said, flushing slightly. “But you have been crying; why?”
Frank as Miss Nellie wished to be, she could not bring herself to say that her feet hurt her, and the dust and heat were ruining her complexion. It was therefore with a half-confident belief that her troubles were really of a moral quality that she answered, “Nothing—nothing, but—but—it's wrong to come here.”
“But you did not think it was wrong when you agreed to come, at our last meeting,” said the young man, with that persistent logic which exasperates the inconsequent feminine mind. “It cannot be any more wrong to-day.”
“But it was not so far off,” murmured the young girl, without looking up.
“Oh, the distance makes it more improper, then,” he said abstractedly; but after a moment's contemplation of her half-averted face, he asked gravely, “Has anyone talked to you about me?”
Ten minutes before, Nellie had been burning to unburthen herself of her father's warning, but now she felt she would not. “I wish you wouldn't call yourself Low,” she said at last.
“But it's my name,” he replied quietly.
“Nonsense! It's only a stupid translation of a stupid nickname. They might as well call you 'Water' at once.”
“But you said you liked it.”
“Well, so I do. But don't you see—I—oh dear! you don't understand.”