What does it matter ?" He watched her toy with the new-born rill, a mere thread of water, build a Lilliputian dam, and muddle the clear outflow as it broke, and then build again.

He had the thought that she had suddenly become younger, more like a child, and he himself older.
"Why don't you talk, John ?" she said.
"I can't.

I am wondering about that Lonesome Man and what the trees are thinking.

Don't you feel how still it is?
It's disrespectful to gabble before your betters." He felt it and said it without affectation, but as usual his mood of wandering thought failed to interest Leila.
"I hate it when it's quiet! I like to hear the wind howl in the pines--" He expressed his annoyance.

"You never want to talk anything but horses and swimming.