"And didn't, Charmian, because we were so very far from the world, and because you were so very much alone, and—"
"And because, Peter, because you are a gentle man and strong, as the old locket says. And do you remember," she went on hurriedly, laying her cool, restraining fingers on my eager lips, "how I found you wearing that locket, and how you blundered and stammered over it, and pretended to read your Homer?"
"And how you sang, to prevent me?"
"And how gravely you reproved me?"
"And how you called me a 'creature'?"
"And how you deserved it, sir—and grew more helpless and ill at ease than ever, and how—just to flatter my vanity—you told me I had 'glorious hair'?"
"And so you have," said I, kissing a curl at her temple; "when you unbind it, my Charmian, it will cover you like a mantle."
Now when I said this, for some reason she glanced up at me, sudden and shy, and blushed and slipped from my arms, and fled up the path like a nymph.
So we presently entered the cottage, flushed and panting, and laughing for sheer happiness. And now she rolled up her sleeves, and set about preparing breakfast, laughing my assistance to scorn, but growing mightily indignant when I would kiss her, yet blushing and yielding, nevertheless. And while she bustled to and fro (keeping well out of reach of my arm), she began to sing in her soft voice to herself:
"'In Scarlet town, where I was born,
There was a fair maid dwellin',
Made every youth cry Well-a-way!
Her name was Barbara Allen.'"