Poor empty little reed! Poor entranced listener mistaking the reed for music! Can it be that when God made His pretty world He had certain things exceeding sharp and sweet to say to us, which it is His will only to whisper to us through human reeds: the frail human reeds on which we sometimes deafly lean until they break and pierce our cruel hands?
The mystery of the spring was becoming clear and clearer.

What Wentworth had believed hitherto to be a deceptive voice was nothing but a reiterated faithful prophecy, a tender warning to him so that he might be ready when the time came.
"The primroses will soon be out," he said as if it were a secret.
"Very soon," she said, though they were out already.

Fay always assented to what was said.
"I must be going," she said, getting up.

"I have walked too far.

If I sit here any longer I shall never get home at all." "Let me take you home on Conrad." Fay hesitated.
"I am frightened of horses." "But not of Conrad.