Hark! how the doves are cooing in the beech-wood." I asked her if she had ever been in the beech-wood.
No; she was quite unacquainted with its mysteries--the fern-glades, the woodbine tangles, and the stream, that, if you listened attentively, you could hear faintly gurgling even where we sat.
"I did not know there was a stream so near.

I have generally taken my walks across the Flat," said Miss March, smiling, and then blushing at having done so, though it was the faintest blush imaginable.
Neither of us made any reply.
Mr.March settled himself to laziness and his arm-chair; the conversation fell to the three younger persons--I may say the two--for I also seceded, and left John master of the field.

It was enough for me to sit listening to him and Miss March, as they gradually became more friendly; a circumstance natural enough, under the influence of that simple, solitary place, where all the pretences of etiquette seemed naturally to drop away, leaving nothing but the forms dictated and preserved by true manliness and true womanliness.
How young both looked, how happy in their frank, free youth, with the sun-rays slanting down upon them, making a glory round either head, and--as glory often does--dazzling painfully.
"Will you change seats with me, Miss March ?--The sun will not reach your eyes here." She declined, refusing to punish any one for her convenience.
"It would not be punishment," said John, so gravely that one did not recognize it for a "pretty speech" till it had passed--and went on with their conversation.

In the course of it he managed so carefully, and at the same time so carelessly, to interpose his broad hat between the sun and her, that the fiery old king went down in splendour before she noticed that she had been thus guarded and sheltered.

Though she did not speak--why should she?
of such a little thing,--yet it was one of those "little things" which often touch a woman more than any words.
Miss March rose.