"It's a little bit too swept and garnished," answered Lawrence. "That is—for a picture, you know. It's better to feel than to look at, if you understand what I mean. It feels so northern, that when you look at it, it seems bare and unfinished without a little snow."
"But you like it, don't you?" asked the young girl, in prompt protest.
"Of course I do. What a question! I thought I'd been showing how much I liked it, ever since I got here."
"I'm not sure that you show what you like and don't like," said Fanny, in a tone of reflexion. "Perhaps it's better not to."
"You don't, at all events. At least—aren't you rather an inscrutable person? Of course I don't know," he added rather foolishly, pulling his woollen cap over his eyes and glancing at her sideways.
"Inscrutable! What a big word! 'The inscrutable ways of Providence'—that's what they always say, don't they? Still—if you mean that I don't 'tell,' you're quite right. I don't—when I can keep my countenance. Do you? It's always far better not to tell. Besides, if you commit yourself to an opinion, you're committing yourself to gaol."
"What a way of putting it! But it's really true. I should so much like to ask you a question about one of your opinions."
"Why don't you?" asked Fanny, turning her eyes to his.
"Oh—lots of reasons: I'm afraid, in the first place; and then, I'm not sure you have one, and then—"
"Say it all—I hate people who hesitate!"