You ARE young." This was what she had at first answered--and quite in the tone too of having taken her minutes.

It had not been wholly to the point, but it had been kind--which was what he most wanted.

And she kept, for her next words, to kindness, kept to her clear, lowered voice and unshrinking face.
"To me too it thoroughly seems that these days have been beautiful.

I shouldn't be grateful to them if I couldn't more or less have imagined their bringing us to this." She affected him somehow as if she had advanced a step to meet him and yet were at the same time standing still.

It only meant, however, doubtless, that she was, gravely and reasonably, thinking--as he exactly desired to make her.