"I mean to make a man happy," said Winsome, confidently.
The scenery again asserted its claim to attention. Observation enlarges the mind, and is therefore pleasant.
After a pause, Winsome said irrelevantly.
"And you really do not think me so foolish?"
"Foolish! I think you are the wisest and—"
"No, no." Winsome would not let him proceed. "You do not really think so. You know that I am wayward and changeable, and not at all what I ought to be. Granny always tells me so. It was very different when she was young, she says. Do you know," continued Winsome thoughtfully, "I used to be so frightened, when I knew that you could read in all these wise books of which I did not know a letter? But I must confess—I do not know what you will say, you may even be angry—I have a note-book of yours which I kept."
But if Winsome wanted a new sensation she was disappointed, for
Ralph was by no means angry.
"So that's where it went?" said Ralph, smiling gladly.
"Yes," said Winsome, blushing not so much with guilt as with the consciousness of the locality of the note-book at that moment, which she was not yet prepared to tell him. But she consoled herself with the thought that she would tell him one day.
Strangely however, Ralph did not seem to care much about the book, so Winsome changed the subject to one of greater interest.