"I had thought you would understand better, Katie," he said.
Something in his voice made her question the kindness of her method.
Better decline a love than laugh at it.
He talked on of how he had, at various times, cared--in a way, he said--for various girls, but had never found the thing he knew was fated to mean the real thing to him; Katie had heard it all before, and always told with that same freedom from suspicion of its ever having been said before.

But perhaps it was the very fact that it was familiar made her listen with a certain tenderness.

For she seemed to be listening, less to him than to the voice of by-gone days--all those merry, unthinking days which in truth had dealt very kindly and generously with her.
She had a sense of leaving them behind.

That alone was enough to make her feel tenderly toward them.

Even a place within a high-board fence, intolerable if one thought one were to remain in it, became a kindly and a pleasant spot from the top of the fence.