"Such a little circumstance don't count, just now," she said.

"You must stop that," she added, presently, "when we get to the edge of the woods." Before long, they came out into the open country and found themselves in a lane which led by a wide circuit to the road passing Mrs Keswick's house.

The old sorrel certainly behaved admirably; he held back when he descended a declivity; he walked over the rough places; and he trotted steadily where the road was smooth.
"It seems like our Fate," said Annie, who now sat up without an arm around her, the protecting woods having been left behind, "he just takes us along without our having anything to do with it." "He is not much of a horse," said Lawrence, clasping, in an unobservable way, the little hand which lay by his side, "but the Fate is charming." Fortunately there was no one upon the road to notice the reinless plight in which these two young people found themselves, and they were quite as well satisfied as if they had been doing their own driving.
After a little period of thought, Annie turned an earnest face to Lawrence, and she said: "Do you know that I never believed that you were really in love with Roberta March." Lawrence squeezed her hand, but did not reply.

He knew very well that he had loved Roberta March, and he was not going to lie about it.
"I thought so," she continued, "because I did not believe that any one, who was truly in love, would want to send other people about, to propose for him, as you did." "That is not exactly the state of the case," he said, "but we must not talk of those things now.

That is all passed and gone." "But if there ever was any love," she persisted, "are you sure that it is all gone ?" "Gone," he answered, earnestly, "as utterly and completely as the days of last summer." And now the sorrel, of his own accord, stopped at Mrs Keswick's outer gate; and Lawrence, getting down, took up the reins, opened the gate, and drove to the house in quite a proper way.
When Mr Croft helped Annie to descend from the spring-wagon, he did not squeeze her hand, nor exchange with her any tender glances, for old Mrs Keswick was standing at the top of the steps.