"I don't understand," said Lawrence, to whom nautical language was incomprehensible.
"Never mind. I only mean that she does not want to grow old. It's always funny to see a person of nineteen who's really over thirty."
"You're fond of them all, aren't you?" he asked, presently.
"Of course! They're my relations--how could I help being fond of them?"
"Oh--yes," answered Lawrence, vaguely. "But they really are very nice--people."
"I don't know. I couldn't say 'very nice ladies,' could I? And I shouldn't exactly say 'very nice women'--and 'very nice people' sounds queer, somehow, doesn't it?"
"And you wouldn't say 'very nice old maids'--"
"No. It wouldn't be civil to me, nor kind to them. The truth is generally unkind and usually rude. Besides, they love you."
"Yes. They rave about you, and your looks, and your manners, and your conversation, and your talents."
"The Dickens! I'm flattered! But it's always the wrong people who like one."
"Why the wrong people?" asked Fanny Trehearne, not looking at him.
"Because all the liking in the world from people one doesn't care for can't make up for the not liking of the one person one does care for."
"Oh--in that way. It's rash to care for only one person. It's putting all one's eggs into one basket."
"No--I should think not! Quite the contrary, I should say."
The young girl would not turn her attention from her horses, though in Lawrence's inexpert opinion she could have done so with perfect safety just then, and without impropriety. The most natural and innocent curiosity should have prompted her to look into his eyes for a moment, if only to see whether he were in earnest or not. He would certainly not have thought her a flirt if she had glanced kindly at him. But she looked resolutely at the horses' heads.
With a sharp turn to the left the buckboard swept through the open gate, the off horse breaking into a canter which Fanny instantly checked. The near wheels passed within a foot of the gatepost.
"Wasn't that rather close?" asked Lawrence.
"Why? There was lots of room. Are you nervous?"
"How sensitive you are! You act as though I had called you a coward."
"I thought you meant to. It sounded rather like it."
"You have no right to think that I mean things which I haven't said," answered the young girl.