We were on our way home, walking up a long hill, when he said:
"I have thought a good deal of you lately, and of a feeling I have had about you from the first—as if it were a great merit in you to be so lovely, and sweet, and charming, and that any one who felt and appreciated your loveliness as I have owed you a kind of debt, as it were, which it would be an honor and a happiness to try to pay."
His face was turned from me, and he trailed the whip-lash in the road, while I, leaning back, could not help looking at him, and, because I did not know what to say, I laughed.
He continued: "Yet with that thought came the realization of its injustice; for you cannot help your prettiness, and you are clever because it is natural to you; and I thought, 'Now, if I am just, I shall pay my debt not to her, who did not make herself, but to God, who made her. I shall love not only the beauty, but also the Giver and Perfecter of it.' Would not that be better, Miss Clifford?"
"Yes, I suppose so. I understand what you mean. Only, then, why have you been so good to me?" I had to look away, for my voice trembled and my eyes were suddenly full of tears.
"Why? Because it has made me happy, and I have been unjust; because I have said to myself, 'This is a dream—a sweet and charming dream. Soon I shall wake and go back to real life; for the present, let me be weak and enjoy it.'"
The glory of the sunshine was departing, the hills were in deep shadow, and the slanting rays were no longer warm and cheering. Mr. Grey wrapped my shawl round me, just as I remembered that I had one in case I should need it.
When I could speak steadily, I remarked: "Something that you have said makes me think of the parable of the talents. It has always perplexed me. Will you tell me if you think I have a talent, and what I am to do with it? I don't want to bury it in the ground."
"Your talents are clear enough, I am sure," he answered. "Your power of pleasing and making yourself loved is one."
"And what am I to do with it?"