"I like it, this lustreless day," said Ned, "and those swallows pursuing their food up and down the lustreless sky. It all seems like a fairy-tale, this catching of the fish, you and I. The day so dim," he said, "so quiet and low, and the garden is hushed. These things would be nothing to me were it not for you," and he put his hand upon her knee.
She withdrew her knee quickly and a moment after got up, and Ned got up and followed her across the grass-plot, and through the rosary; not a word was said and she began to wonder he did not plead to be forgiven. She felt she should send him away, but she could not find words to tell him to go. His conduct was so unprecedented; no one had ever taken such a liberty before. It was shameful that she was not more angry, for she knew she was only trying to feel angry.
"But," he said, suddenly, as if he divined her thoughts, "we've forgotten the fish; won't you come back and help me to carry them? I cannot carry three trout by myself."
She was about to answer severely, but as she stood looking at him her thoughts yielded before an extraordinary feeling of delight; she tried in vain to collect her scattered mind—she wished to reproach him.
"Are you going to answer me, Ellen?" and he took her hand.
"Ned, are you a Catholic?" she said, turning suddenly.
"I was born one, but I have thought little about religion. I have had other things to think about. What does it matter? Religion doesn't help us to love one another."
"I should like you better if you were a good Catholic."
"I wonder how that is?" he said, and he admired the round hand and its pretty articulations, and she closed her hand on his with a delicious movement.
"I could like you better, Ned, if you were a Catholic.... I think I could."