"It isn't going to be that way, Natalia," he said quietly when she was comfortably adjusted and tugging at her skirts. "Nothing in the world is going to separate us—ever. Will you ride with me to the main road?"
As they passed out of the gate, the boughs of the overlapping trees casting queer shadows upon their path, the faint, pungent odour of new leaves making the air fresh and spicy, they were silent a long time, each happy and contented in a very different way.
"Then what Mammy told me last night isn't so?" Natalia broke the long silence.
"What did she tell you?"
"That you would soon be going away, and forgetting all about me."
Sargent shook his head, slowly. From where he sat he could only see the little head with its mass of black hair and two long braids. Suddenly he leaned forward and kissed it in the wide part. "I shall never forget you, Natalia. It will be quite the other way."
"Not even when I go away?"
"Not even then—but that will not be soon."
For a moment Natalia was silent; then, in a whisper, "You mustn't tell it, but—I may go next week. I heard Mamma Brandon reading a letter this week to Aunt Maria. It was from her kinsfolk in Boston. They want her to send me up there."
"To the Talbots!" Sargent exclaimed. "I know them. Morgan Talbot is my best friend. We were at college together."