We had reached the stile over which you have to climb to get into the wood. He had crossed first, and I was standing on the top step--he was holding my hand in his to help me over. I did not notice that he had called me Molly. "Yes?" "I wish you would be pleasant to me sometimes. You don't know what a difference it would make to me." "What nonsense! I am perfectly convinced that, under any circumstances, nothing I could say or do could be of the slightest consequence to you." "Couldn't it? You try!" "I am much too young." "Too young! Too young!" There was all at once something in his voice and manner which gave me quite a start. I snatched my hand away and jumped down to the ground. "We can't stop here all day if we mean to do any skating, and I for one certainly do." I marched off at about five miles an hour. He wore an air of meekness which was so little in keeping with his general character that, at the bottom of my heart, it rather appalled me. "I would sooner be snubbed by you than flattered by another woman." "Snubbed by me! Considering how you're always snubbing me, that's amusing." "I never mean to snub you." "You never mean to? Then you must be singularly unfortunate in having to so constantly act in direct opposition to your intentions. To begin with, you hardly ever treat me as if I were a woman at all." "Well, you are not a woman--are you--quite?" "Mr Sanford! When you talk like that I feel--! Pray what sort of remark do you call that?" "You are standing at the stepping stones." "At the stepping-stones?" "Happy is the man who is to lead you across them." "I don't in the least understand you. And I would have you to know that I feel that it is high time that I should put childish things behind me; and I should like other people to recognise that I have done so." "Childish things? What are childish things? Oh, Molly, I wish that you could always be a child. And the pity is that one of these days you'll be wishing it too." "I'm sure I sha'n't. It's horrid to be a child." "Is it?" "You are always being snubbed." "Are you?" "No one treats you with the least respect; or imagines that you can possibly ever be in earnest. As for opinions of your own--it's considered an absurdity that you should ever have them. Look at you! You're laughing at me at this very moment." "Don't you know why I am laughing at you, Molly?" Again there was something in the way in which he asked the question which gave me the oddest feeling. As if I was half afraid. Ever since we had left the stile I had been conscious of the most ridiculous sense of nervousness. A thing with which, as a rule, I am never troubled. I was suddenly filled with a wild desire to divert the conversation from ourselves, no matter how. So I made a desperate plunge. "Have you seen anything of Hetty lately?"