The air about them was full of strange delight, They
were in deep dusk as they neared the house. For one moment of
long-remembered joy she let him put his arm about her waist, but
when he kissed her cheek she drew herself away.
They walked a little time in silence.
"I am no flirt," she whispered presently. Neither spoke for a
moment.
Then she seemed to feel and pity his emotion. Something slowed the
feet of both.
"There," she whispered; "you may kiss my hand if you care to."
He kissed the pretty hand that was offered to him, and her whisper
seemed to ring in the dusky silence like the dying rhythm of a bell.
IX
Drove and Drovers
A little after daybreak they went on with the cows. For half a
mile or more until the little house had sunk below the hill crest
Trove was looking backward. Now and ever after he was to think and
tarry also in the road of life and look behind him for the golden
towers of memory. The drovers saw a change in Trove and flung at
him with their stock of rusty, ancestral witticisms. But Thurst
Tilly had a way of saying and doing quite his own,
"Never see any one knocked so flat as you was," said he. "Ye
didn't know enough t' keep ahead o' the cattle.
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