"Settle down?" he echoed—"How? What do you mean?"
"Why, when you settle down with a wife, and—shall we say six children?" she queried, merrily—"Yes, I think it must be six! Like the Sieur Amadis! And when you forget that you ever sat with me under the trees, holding my hand—so!"
The lovely, half-laughing compassion of her look nearly upset his self-possession. He drew closer to her side.
"Innocent!" he exclaimed, passionately—"if you would only listen to reason—"
She shook her head.
"I never could!" she declared, with an odd little air of penitent self-depreciation—"People who ask you to listen to reason are always so desperately dull! Even Priscilla!—when she asks you to 'listen to reason,' she's in the worst of tempers! Besides, Robin, dear, we shall have plenty of chances to 'listen to reason' when we grow older,—we're both young just now, and a little folly won't hurt us. Have patience with me!—I want to tell you some quite unreasonable—quite abnormal things about love! May I?"
"Yes—if I may too!" he answered, kissing the hand he held, with lingering tenderness.
The soft colour flew over her cheeks,—she smiled.
"Poor Robin!" she said—"You deserve to be happy and you will be!—not with me, but with some one much better, and ever so much prettier! I can see you as the master of Briar Farm—such a sweet home for you and your wife, and all your little children running about in the fields among the buttercups and daisies—a pretty sight, Robin!—I shall think of it often when—when I am far away!"
He was about to utter a protest,—she stopped him by a gesture.