John Ward, Preacher | Page 7

began to pick three long stems of grass and braid them together. Lois sat absently twisting the fringe on one end of the soft scarf of yellow crepe, which was knotted across her bosom, and fell almost to the hem of her white dress.
"I mean," she said, "I'm sorry Helen won't have you in Lockhaven. Of course Ashurst will miss you. Oh, dear! how horrid it will be not to have Helen here!"
"Yes," said Gifford sympathetically, "you'll be awfully lonely."
They were silent for a little while. Some white phlox in the girl's bosom glimmered faintly, and its heavy fragrance stole out upon the warm air. She pulled off a cluster of the star-like blossoms, and held them absently against her lips. "You don't seem at all impatient to get away from Ashurst, Giff," she said. "If I had been you, I should have gone to Lockhaven a month ago; everything is so sleepy here. Oh, if I were a man, wouldn't I just go out into the world!"
"Well, Lockhaven can scarcely be called the world," Gifford answered in his slow way.
"But I should think you would want to go because it will be such a pleasure to Helen to have you there," she said.
Gifford smiled; he had twisted his braid of grass into a ring, and had pushed it on the smallest of his big fingers, and was turning it thoughtfully about. "I don't believe," he said, "that it will make the slightest difference to Helen whether I am there or not. She has Mr. Ward."
"Oh," Lois said, "I hardly think even Mr. Ward can take the place of father, and the rectory, and me. I know it will make Helen happier to have somebody from home near her."
"No," the young man said, with a quiet persistence, "it won't make the slightest difference, Lois. She'll have the person she loves best in the world; and with the person one loves best one could be content in the desert of Sahara."
"You seem to have a very high opinion of John Ward," Lois said, a thread of anger in her voice.
"I have," said Gifford; "but that isn't what I mean. It's love, not John Ward, which means content. But you don't have a very high opinion of him?"
"Oh, yes, I have," Lois said quickly; "only he isn't good enough for Helen. I suppose, though, I'd say that of anybody. And he irritates me, he is so different from other people. I don't think I do--adore him!"
Gifford did not speak; he took another strand of grass, and began to weave it round and round his little ring, to make it smaller.
"Perhaps I ought not to say that," she added; "of course I wouldn't to any one but you."
"You ought not to say it to me, Lois," he said.
"Why? Isn't it true?" she said. "I don't think it is wrong to say he's different; it's certainly true!" Gifford was silent. "Do you?" she demanded.
"Yes," Gifford answered quietly; "and somehow it doesn't seem fair, don't you know, to say anything about them, they are so happy; it seems as though we ought not even to speak of them."
Lois was divided between indignation at being found fault with and admiration for the sentiment. "Well," she said, rather meekly for her, "I won't say anything more; no doubt I'll like him when I know him better."
"See if that fits your finger, Lois," her companion said, sitting up, and handing her the little grass ring. She took it, smiling, and tried it on. Gifford watched her with an intentness which made him frown; her bending head was like a shadowy silhouette against the pale sky, and the little curls caught the light in soft mist around her forehead.
"But I'm glad for my own part, then," she went on, "to think of you with Helen. You must tell me everything about her and about her life, when you write; she won't do it herself."
"I will," he answered, "if you let me write to you."
Lois opened her eyes with surprise; here was this annoying formality again, which Gifford's fault-finding seemed to have banished. "Let you write?" she said impatiently. "Why, you know I depended on your writing, Giff, and you must tell me everything you can think of. What's the good of having a friend in Lockhaven, if you don't?"
She had clasped her hands lightly on her knees, and was leaning forward a little, looking at him; for he had turned away from her, and was pulling at a bunch of violets. "I tell you what it is, Lois," he said; "I cannot go away, and write to you, and not--and not tell you. I suppose I'm a fool to tell you, but I can't help it."
"Tell me what?" Lois asked, bewildered.
"Oh," Gifford burst out, rising, and standing beside her,