‘We understand each other,’ said Jasper, in a low voice, as pleasant and soft as the murmur of the flies. ‘There are songs without words, and there is speech without voice: what I have thought and felt you know, though I have not told you anything, and I think I know also what you think and feel. Now, however, it is as well that we should come to plain words.’ ‘Yes, Jasper, I think so as well, that is why I have come over here with my tuckers.’ ‘We know each other’s heart,’ he said, stooping in over her head and the garnishing of mignonette, and speaking as low as a whisper, not really in a whisper but in his natural warm, rich voice. ‘There is this, dear Barbara, about me. My name, my family, are dishonoured by the thoughtless, wrongful act of my poor brother. I dare not ask you to share that name with me, not only on this ground, but also because I am absolutely penniless. A great wrong has been done to your father and sister by us, and it does not become me to ask the greatest and richest of gifts from your family. Hereafter I may inherit my father’s mill at Buckfastleigh. When I do I will, as I have undertaken, fully repay the debt to your sister, but till I can do that I may not ask for more. You are, and must be, to me a far-off, unapproachable star, to whom I look up, whom I shall ever love and stretch my hands towards.’ ‘I am not a star at all,’ said Barbara, ‘and as for being far off and unapproachable, you are talking nonsense, and you do not mean it or you would not have stuck bits of mignonette in my hair. I do not understand rhodomontade.’ Jasper laughed. He liked her downright, plain way. ‘I am quoting a thought from “Preciosa,”’ he said. ‘I know nothing of “Preciosa,” save that it is something Eve strums.’ ‘Well—divest what I have said of all exaggeration of simile, you understand what I mean.’ ‘And I want you to understand my position exactly, Jasper,’ she said. ‘I also am penniless. The money my aunt left me I have made over to Eve because she could not marry Mr. Coyshe without something present, as well as a prospect of something to come.’ ‘What! sewn your poor little legacy in as a tucker to her wedding gown?’ ‘Mr. Coyshe wants to go to London, he is lost here; and Eve would be happy in a great city, she mopes in the country. So I have consented to this arrangement. I do not want the money as I live here with my father, and it is a real necessity for Eve and Mr. Coyshe. You see—I could not do other.’ ‘And when your father dies, Morwell also passes to Eve. What is left for you?’