I have asked the young men themselves whether they ever said anything to their sweethearts, and those young men have answered, "No; that they didn't know as they did." So that I am inclined to believe that they are contented with that silent utterance of the heart which is so superior to the silly whisperings one hears on dark ottomans in drawing-rooms.
But the Vicar had a strong dislike to lovers' walks.

He was a practical man, and had studied parish statistics for some years, so that his opinion is entitled to respect.

He used to ask, why an honest girl should not receive her lover at her father's house, or in broad daylight, and many other impertinent questions which we won't go into, but which many a west-country parson has asked before, and never got an answer to.
Of all pleasant places in the parish, surely one of the pleasantest for a meeting of this kind was the old oak at the end of Hawker's plantation, where George met Nelly a night we know of.

So quiet and lonely, and such pleasant glimpses down long oaken glades, with a bright carpet of springing fern.

Surely there will be a couple here this sweet May evening.
So there is! Walking this way too! George Hawker is one of them; but we can't see who the other is.