"Don't you say that. Far, far from stupid. Never was a cleverer girl, I'm sure."
She shook her head and talked about the ferns. Then she became personal.
"I've always felt somehow with you; but I suppose it ban't maidenly to say such things—but I've always felt as you understood me, Mark."
"Ah!" he said. "And as for me, I've felt—God, He knows what I've felt."
The man broke off, and she smiled at him and dropped her eyes. She knew the thing that shared his heart with her, and now spoke of it.
"And through you I've got to love tenor bell almost as much as you do. Of a Sunday the day isn't complete till I've heard the beautiful note of your bell and thought of you at the rope. I always somehow think of you when I hear that bell; and I think of the bell when I see you! Ban't that strange?"
"'Tis your wonderful quick mind, and you couldn't say anything to please me better."
"I wanted to ask you about the bells. I'm so ignorant; but I thought, if 'twasn't silly of me, I'd ask you about 'em. I suppose they'm awful difficult to ring?"
"Not a bit. Only wants steady practice. The whole business is little understood, but 'tis simple enough. I've gone into it all from the beginning, and I'm glad—very glad—you care about it. The first thing is for a ring of bells to be in harmony with itself, and founders ought to be free to make 'em so. The bells are never better than when they are broken out of the moulds, and every touch of the lathe, or chip of the chisel, is music lost. The thickness of the sound-bow should be one-thirteenth of the diameter, you must know; but modern bells are made for cheapness. Long in the waist and high in the shoulder they should be for true fineness of sound; but they cast 'em with short waists and flat shoulders now. 'Tis easier to hang and ring them so; but they don't give the same music. My tenor is a wonderful good bell—a maiden bell, as we say—one cast true, that has never had a chip at the sound-bow. 'I call the quick to church and dead to grave,' is her motto. A Pennington bell she is, and no bell-founder ever cast a better. Every year makes her sweeter, for there's nothing improves bell-metal like time."
"I suppose it wouldn't be possible for me actually to see the bells?"