She could not but smile through her tears.
“If you will take my heather again and say nothing of it, I will never take the liberty again,” he went on, eager to make up for his error.
“Then I will not take it,” she answered.
“It was stupid of me,” said he.
“It is,” she corrected meaningly.
“I never had any acquaintance with—with—girls,” he added, trying to find some excuse for himself.
“That is plain enough,” she agreed cordially, and she followed it with a sigh.
For a minute they stood thus irresolute and then the lad bent and lifted the ill-used heather. He held it in his hand for a moment tenderly as if it was a thing that lived, and sighed over it, and then, fearing that, too, might seem absurd to her and vexatious, he made an effort and twirled it between a finger and thumb by its stem like any casual wild-flower culled without reflection.
“What are you going to do with it now?” she asked him, affecting indifference, but eyeing it with interest; and he made no answer, for how could he tell her he meant to keep it always for remembrance? “Give it to me,” she said suddenly, and took it from his fingers. She ran into the house and placed it in the only fragment of earthenware left by the departed tenants. “It will do very well there,” she said.
“But I meant it for you,” said Gilian ruefully, “It is a sign of good luck.”