So musing, she walked on to the farm-house. Leonard had picked up
one of the blossoms she had let fall, and appeared to be curiously
examining it. If he had apologized for his want of grammar, or
promised to reform it, her interest in him might have diminished;
but his silence, his simple, natural obedience to some powerful
inner force, whatever it was, helped to strengthen that phantom of
him in her mind, which was now beginning to be a serious trouble.
Once again, the day before she left the Rambo farmhouse to return
to the city, she came upon him, alone. She had wandered off to the
Brandywine, to gather ferns at a rocky point where some choice
varieties were to be found. There were a few charming clumps,
half-way up a slaty cliff, which it did not seem possible to scale,
and she was standing at the base, looking up in vain longing, when
a voice, almost at her ear, said:
"Which ones do you want?"
Afterwards, she wondered that she did not start at the voice.
Leonard had come up the road from one of the lower fields: he wore
neither coat nor waistcoat, and his shirt, open at the throat,
showed the firm, beautiful white of the flesh below the strong tan
of his neck.
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