With one of her quick changes Margaret frowned and answered, "Why is the black yew set with little lamps? Why does a black cloud have an edge of light? Why does a blackbird have white feathers in his body? Must things be ALL dark or ALL light?" And she stamped her foot and turned hastily away, and began to do up her hair with trembling hands. And Hobb came behind her and kissed the top of her head. She turned on him half angrily, half smiling, saying, "No! for you do not like my black lock." And Hobb said very gravely, "I will find all things beautiful in my beloved, from her black lock to her blacker temper." Margaret shot a swift look at him and saw that he was laughing at her with an echo of her own words; and she flung her arms about him, laughing too. "Oh, Hobb!" said she, "you pluck out my black temper by the roots!"
So with teasing and talking and quarreling and kissing, and ever-growing love, July came near its close; and as love discovers or creates all miracles in what it loves, Hobb for pure joy grew light of spirit, and laughed and played with his beloved till she knew not whether she had given her heart to a child or a man; and again when the happiness that was in his soul shone through his eyes, he was so transfigured that, gazing on his beauty, she knew not whether she had received the heart of a man or a god. And the truth was that at this time Hobb was all three, since love, dear maidens, commands a region that extends beyond birth and death, and includes all that is mortal in all that is eternal. And as for Margaret, she was all things by turns, sometimes as gay as sunbeams so that Hobb could scarcely follow her dancing spirit, but could only sun himself in the delight of it; and sometimes she was full of folly and daring, and made him climb with her the highest trees, and drop great distances from bough to bough, mocking at all his fears for her though he had none for himself; and sometimes when he was downcast, as happened now and then for thinking on his brothers, she forgot her jealousy in tenderness of his sorrow, and made him lean his head upon her breast, and talked to him low as a mother to her baby, words that perhaps were only words of comfort, yet seemed to him infinite wisdom, as the child believes of its mother's tender speech. And at all times she was lovelier than his dreams of her. Not once in this month did Hobb go out of the forest, which was confined on the north and north-west by big roads running to the world, and on all other sides by sloped of Downland. But whenever in their wanderings they arrived at any of these boundaries, Margaret turned him back and said, "I do not love the open; come away."
But on the last day of the month they came upon a very narrow neck of the treeless down, a green ride carved between their wood and a dark plantation that lay beyond, so close as to be almost a part of Open Winkins, but for that one little channel of space; and Hobb pointed to it and said, "That's a strange place, let us go there."
"No," said Margaret.
"But is it not our own wood?"
"How can you think so?" she said petulantly. "Do you not see how black it is in there? How can you want to go there? Come away."
"What is it called?" asked Hobb.
"The Red Copse," said she.
"Why?" asked Hobb.
"I don't know," said she.