Ralph looked eager and a little frightened.
"Would you do that really?" he asked eagerly.
"Of course I should!" replied Winsome, a little indignantly.
Ralph took her in his arms, and in such a masterful way, that first she was frightened and then she was glad. It is good to feel weak in the arms of a strong man who loves you. God made it so when he made all things well.
"My lassie!" said Ralph for all comment.
Then fell a silence so prolonged that a shy squirrel in the boughs overhead resumed his researches upon the tassels and young shoots of the pine-tops, throwing down the debris in a contemptuous manner upon Winsome and Ralph, who stood below, listening to the beating of each other's hearts.
Finally Winsome, without moving, produced apparently from regions unknown a long green silk purse with three silver rings round the middle.
As she put it into Ralph's hand, something doubtful started again into his eyes, but Winsome looked so fierce in a moment, and so decidedly laid a finger on his lips, that perforce he was silent.
As soon as he had taken it, Winsome clapped her hands (as well as was at the time possible for her—it seemed, indeed, altogether impossible to an outsider, yet it was done), and said:
"You are not sorry, dear—you are glad?" with interrogatively arched eyebrows.