Thus with the shadows of the twilight stealing over the woods, and the birds piping lustily in every thicket, Bess and Richard Jeffray wandered through Pevensel together, looking with questioning youth into each other’s eyes. Bess began to tell him of the memories that stood like frail ghosts on the threshold of her forest life. She told him of the flitting fancies of other days, of the faces and scenes she but half remembered. Jeffray, impressed by her eager intensity of belief, reacted to the many suggestions her words inspired. He watched her as she walked beside him, tall, lissome, and convincing, her looks eloquent towards the proving of her childish memories. Jeffray had seen what country hoydens were worth in the matter of charm and of beauty, and had discovered pretty milkmaids to be a myth. Bess was as different from any Sussex Blowzelinda as a stately cypress from a dwarf oak outcrowded in some sodden wood.
When she had ended he turned to her with no little eagerness, as though her needs were already his.
“Have you ever spoken of this to any one?” he asked her.
Her face had kindled in the telling of the tale, and her eyes met Jeffray’s and held them steadily.
“I have often spoken to old Ursula, but she has always laughed at me.”
“And you have no trinkets or rings that might have come from your mother?”
She shook her head, still looking at him solemnly.
“Not one.”
“And why do they want to marry you to Dan?”
“Because he’s hot for my sake,” she answered, coloring and looking fierce.