“Come along then,” said Edgar. He was glad to turn his back on the house, though he could not but look back as he left, wondering whether, at any moment at any door or window, the face might appear which he had not seen for so long--the face of his little love, whom he had once loved but lightly, yet which seemed to fix itself more vividly in his recollection every day. He could not sit still and permit himself to think that possibly she was in the same house with him, within reach, that he might hear at any moment the sound of her voice. No, rather, since he had given his voluntary promise to her mother, and since he was so far separated from her by circumstances, rather hurry out of the house and turn his back upon a possibility which raised such a tumult in his heart. He breathed more freely when he was out of doors, in the damp wintry woods, with Phil, who kept close by his side, carrying on a monologue very different in subject, but not so different in character from his father’s steady strain of talk. There is a certain charm in these wintry woods, the wet greenness of the banks, the mournful stillness of the atmosphere, the crackle of here and there a dropping branch, the slow sailing through the air now and then of a leaf, falling yellow and stiff from the top of a bough. Edgar liked the covert and the companionship of trees, which were denuded like himself of all that had made life brave and fair. The oaks and beeches, stiffening in their faded russet and yellow, stood against the deep green of the pine and firs, like forlorn old beauties in rustling court dresses of a worn-out fashion; the great elms and spare tall poplars spread their intricate lacework of branches against the sky; far in the west the sun was still shining, giving a deep background of red and gold to the crowded groups of dry boughs. The rustle of some little woodland animal warmly furred among the fallen leaves and decaying husks, the crackling of that branch which always breaks somewhere in the silence, the trickle of water, betraying itself by the treacherous greenness of the mossy grass--these were all the sounds about, except their own footsteps, and the clear somewhat shrill voice of the boy, talking with cheerful din against time, and almost making up for the want of the birds, so much did his cheerful aimless chatter resemble their sweet confusion of song and speech, the ordinary language of the woods. “I could hit that squirrel as easy as look at him. I bet you a shilling I could! only just look here, cocking his shining eye at us, the cheeky little brute! Here goes!” “Don’t,” said Edgar, “how should you like it if some Brobdingnagian being took a shot at you? What do you think, Phil--were those ladies going to stay?”