“Miss Kingsworth,” he said, “I am talking a great deal of nonsense to you. I do like picking blackberries—sometimes even now.”
“Of course,” said Kate, “my mother does not enjoy things as I do. But then she is unhappy because my father was drowned.”
“I hope with all my heart,” said the Major, “that you will never have cause to be unhappy. And I hardly think experience will show you the way to be always bored.”
“Why no,” said Kate, “because I think if people can’t take an interest in something they must be very stupid themselves.”
“And if they affect not to take an interest?—”
“Well, I don’t see why any one should do that!”
“No? Is your basket full? Are you going to have another blackberrying to-morrow?”
They had another blackberrying in a few days’ time, but the weather had changed, the frost had touched the fruit, and the downs looked cold and grey. But Kate was slow in forgetting that last gathering, for Major Clare told her a long story of a great fern-hunting in the days of his youth, before he had grown tired of picnics; and of certain early hopes which had been cruelly blighted.
He had never expected to enjoy those English country pleasures again.
Did Katharine think there could be a second spring of youth and enjoyment?