She looked at him gratefully. "You are always so kind!"
"Well," observed David, with a great forward stride, "aren't you?"
Gabriella, being a woman, did not particularly prize this remark: it suggested his being kind because she had been kind; and a woman likes nothing as reward, everything as tribute.
"And now if the apple trees are only not killed!" she exclaimed joyously, changing the subject.
"Why the apple trees?"
"If you had been here last spring, you would have understood. When they bloom, they are mine, I take possession." After a moment she added: "They bring back the recollection of such happy times—springs long ago. Some time I'll tell you."
"When you were a little girl?"
"Yes."
"I wish I had known you when you were a little girl," said David, in an undertone, looking into the fire.
Gabriella reflected how impossible this would have been: the thought caused her sharp pain.