“But I would never condescend to touch one bit. You were ashamed to say a word about me, then, were you?”
“Insie, now, Insie, too bad of you it is. You can have no idea what those butlers and footmen are, if ever you tell them anything. They are worse than the maids; they go down stairs, and they get all the tidbits out of the cook, and sit by the girl they like best, on the strength of having a secret about their master.”
“Well, you are cunning!” cried the maiden, with a sigh. “I thought that your nature was loftier than that. No, I do not know anything of butlers and footmen; and I think that the less I know of you the better.”
“Oh, Insie, darling Insie, if you run away like that—I have got both your hands, and you shall not run away. Do you want to kill me, Insie? They have had the doctor for me.”
“Oh, how very dreadful! that does sound dreadful. I am not at all crying, and you need not look. But what did he say? Please to tell me what he said.”
“He said, 'Salts and senna.' But I got up a high tree. Let us think of nicer things. It is enough to spoil one's dinner. Oh, Insie, what is anything to eat or drink, compared with looking at you, when you are good? If I could only tell you the things that I have felt, all day and all night, since this day fortnight, how sorry you would be for having evil thoughts of me!”
“I have no evil thoughts; I have no thoughts at all. But it puzzles me to think what on earth you have been thinking. There, I will sit down, and listen for a moment.”
“And I may hold one of your hands? I must, or you would never understand me. Why, your hands are much smaller than mine, I declare! And mine are very small; because of thinking about you. Now you need not laugh—it does spoil everything to laugh so. It is more than a fortnight since I laughed at all. You make me feel so miserable. But would you like to know how I felt? Mind, I would rather cut my head off than tell it to any one in the world but you.”
“Now I call that very kind of you. If you please, I should like to know how you have been feeling.” With these words Insie came quite close up to his side, and looked at him so that he could hardly speak. “You may say it in a whisper, if you like,” she said; “there is nobody coming for at least three hours, and so you may say it in a whisper.”
“Then I will tell you; it was just like this. You know that I began to think how beautiful you were at the very first time I looked at you. But you could not expect me so to love you all at once as I love you now, dear Insie.”