But I shall write to Aunt Ann, of course." "That won't be the same." "No." They walked on in silence for a little while, the girl gazing idly at the tall trees, the lad feeling strangely aware, freshly aware, as they moved, of the great blue eyes and of the sun-shafts falling on the abundant hair she swept back from time to time with a careless hand.

Presently she stood still, and sat down without a word on the moss-cushioned trunk of a great spruce, fallen perhaps a century ago.
She was passing through momentary moods of depression or of pleasure as she thought of change and travel, or nourishing little jealous desires that her serious-minded cousin should miss her.
The cousin turned back.

"You might have invited me to sit down, Miss Grey." He laughed, and then as he fell on the brown pine-needles at her feet and looked up, he saw that her usual quick response to his challenge of mirth was wanting.
"What are you thinking about ?" he asked.
"Oh, about Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim, and--and--Lucy, and who will ride her--" "You can trust Uncle Jim about Lucy." "I suppose so," said the girl rather dolefully and too near to the tears she had been sternly taught to suppress.
"Isn't it queer," he said, "how people think about the same things?
I was just going to speak of Aunt Ann and Uncle Jim.

Uncle Jim often talks to me and to Mr.Rivers about the election, but if I say a word or ask a question at table, Aunt Ann says, 'we don't talk politics.'" "But once, John, I heard Mr.Rivers say that slavery was a curse and wicked.

Uncle Jim, he said Aunt Ann's people held slaves, and he didn't want to talk about it.