A hush fell upon the woods, stiller for the gossip of the stream. Ringed pigeons in the trees overhead made low, melodious love; far in the forest dusk the hermit-bird sang, but so faint, so distant, that the whisper of leaves stirring effaced the hymn of the gray recluse.
"I had not thought that you were so nearly a man to be appointed cornet of horse," said Silver Heels, digging into the moss with her knife.
"And you," said I, magnanimously, "are almost a woman." But I said it from courtesy, not because I believed it.
"Yes," she replied, indifferently, "maids may wed at sixteen years."
"Wed!" I repeated, laughing outright.
"Ay. Mother was a bride at sixteen."
I was silent in my effort to digest such an absurd idea. Silver Heels marry in another year! I looked at the frail yet full arm, half bared, the slender neck, the round, clear hazel eyes, the faintly smiling mouth, which was the mouth of a child. Silver Heels wed? The idea was grotesque. It was also displeasing.
Not to rebuff her with scorn, I said: "Indeed, you are quite a woman. Perhaps in a year you will be one! Who knows?—for a year is such a long, long time, Silver Heels."
"It is a very long time," she admitted.
"And to love, one must be quite old," said I.