"There is plenty of time to do all that yet," she said. "What else would you wish you had done?"
He looked at her, for there was something in her voice he did not understand, but her eyes were turned from him. "I should regret that we had not talked more. Do you know, we have been very silent? And we used to have so many things to talk over in the old days. I should have twinges of remorse that I did not make more of your companionship when I had it, instead of raising more corn than we can eat in half a dozen years, and letting you tear your hands shelling it." He stooped and kissed one of her slender hands. She withdrew it quickly; there had never been even a touch of the sentimental between them.
"What would you regret?" he asked suddenly.
She shrank a little, and her eyes looked far away, past the gateway. "Some of the things you mention; very much that I had not encouraged you more to go on with your work, but mainly—"
"Well, mainly?"
She jumped down from the rock where she had been sitting, and answered evasively, "I don't think there is any mainly, unless it is that when I had such a good chance to be a hermit, I couldn't remember all those wonderful Mahatma practices that make one so good and so wise. The only formulas I have really tried hard to recall are for cooking without sugar, or spice, or fruit."
VI
Heap on more wood!—the wind is chill;
But let it whistle as it will,
We'll keep our Christmas merry still.
Scott.
It was Christmas Eve, and the night being in a reminiscent mood, was chillier than usual. Adam piled up the logs till the whole room was full of the warm glow. "Let us hang up our stockings," he said, with an attempt at gayety.
Robin spread out her hands with a gesture of comic distress. "If only I had a pair to hang!" she said. "But they gave boxes in England, didn't they? I noticed that the rain the other day seemed to have come through the shed roof, and I fear the contents of those packing cases may be the worse for it, especially if they happen to be sugar. Do you think it would do to make ourselves presents of them? If you do, please give me the smaller box; I am sure it has hair-pins and needles and darning-cotton in it."