“Do I seem so very severe?” she asked.
“Oh no, not severe. I should be afraid of you if you were. I shouldn't have dared to come to Campobello.”
He looked at her across the blueberry bushes. His gay speech meant everything or nothing. She could parry it with a jest, and then it would mean nothing. She let her head droop over her work, and made no answer.
“I wish you could have seen those fellows on the boat,” said Mavering.
“Hello, Mavering!” called the voice of John Munt, from another part of the woods.
“Alice!—Miss Pasmer!” came that of Miss Anderson.
He was going to answer, when he looked at Alice. “We'll let them see if they can find us,” he said, and smiled.
Alice said nothing at first; she smiled too. “You know more about the woods than I do. I suppose if they keep looking—”
“Oh yes.” He came toward her with a mass of clusters which he had clipped. “How fast you do them!” he said, standing and looking down at her. “I wish you'd let me come and make up the withes for you when you need them.”
“No, I couldn't allow that on any account,” she answered, twisting some stems of the grass together.