Jennifer: I know. Yet I cannot help wondering who bakes them gingerbread for Sunday.
Martin: Let them go without. They do not deserve gingerbread.
Jennifer: I know, I know. But they like it so much. And it is nice making it, too.
Martin: Then I suppose it will have to be made till the last of Sundays. What a bother it all is.
Jennifer: I know. Good night, dear Master Pippin.
Martin: Dear milkmaid, good night. There lie your fellows, careless of the color of the grass they lie on, and of the years that lie on them. They have forsworn the baking of cakes, the eating of which begets dreams, to which women are not given. Go lie with them, and be if you can as careless and dreamless as they are.
And then, seeing the tears refilling her eyes, he hastily pulled out his handkerchief again and wiped them as they fell, saying, "But if you cannot—if you cannot (don't cry so fast!)—if you cannot, then give me your key (dear Jennifer, please dry up!) to Gillian's Well-House, because you were glad that my tale ended gladly, and also because all lovers, no matter of what age, are green enough, and chiefly because my handkerchief's sopping."
Then Jennifer caught his hands in hers and whispered, "Oh, Martin! are they? ALL lovers?—are they green enough?"
"God help them, yes!" said Martin Pippin.
She dropped his hands, leaving her key in them, and looked up at him with wet lashes, but happiness behind them. So he stooped and kissed the last tears from her eyes. Since his handkerchief had become quite useless for the purpose.