"It is pretty," I said.
"It is pretty at the top; but we are a long way from that. Is it too rough for you?"
"Not at all," I said. "I like it."
"You are a good walker for a Southern girl."
"Oh, but I have lived at the North; I am only Southern born."
Soon, however, he made me stop to rest. There was a good grey rock under the shadow of the trees; Thorold placed me on that and threw himself on the moss at my feet. We were up so high in the world that the hills on the other side of the river rose beautifully before us through the trees, and a sunny bit of the lower ground of the plain looked like a bit of another world that we were leaving. It was a sunny afternoon and a little hazy; every line softened, every colour made richer, under the mellowing atmosphere.
"Now you can explain it all to me," said Thorold, as he threw himself down. "You have walked too fast. You are warm."
"And you do not look as if it was warm at all."
"I! This is nothing to me," he said. "But perhaps it will warm me and cool you if we get into a talk. I want explanations."