"There's always something going on in the woods," she said softly and dreamily. "The trees talk to each other all day long, and the squirrels sit and crack nuts while they listen to the conversation. I like the woods. Somehow one never feels alone when one gets where things grow--does one?" "I don't mind being alone when I can't be--I mean--" Lawrence did not finish his sentence, but bent down and picked up a twig from the ground. "Isn't it funny!" he exclaimed, twisting it in his hands. "All the bark's loose, and turns round." "Of course--it's an old twig, and it's wet. When don't you mind being alone? You were saying something--'when you couldn't be with'--something, or somebody." "Oh--you know! What's the use of my saying it?" Lawrence kept his eye on the twig. "I don't know, and if I want you to say anything, that's the use," answered Fanny, whose prose style, so to say, was direct if it was anything. "Yes--but you see--I didn't mean anything in particular." He broke the twig in two and tossed it over the path into the brook below. Fanny changed her position a little, leaning forward and clasping her gloved hands round her knees. "You're very nice, you know," she said meditatively. "I like you." "Because I don't answer your questions?" asked Lawrence, looking at her face, which was half turned from him. "Yes. That's one of the reasons." "It's a very funny one. I don't see much reason in it, I confess." "Don't you? Don't you know that a woman sometimes likes a man for what he doesn't say?" "I never thought of it in that way. I daresay you're right. You ought to know much better than I do. Especially if you really like me, as you say you do." "Oh--I'm honest. I never said I'd been in the navy!" Fanny laughed. "Besides, if I didn't like you, why should I say so? Just to say something civil? The way Mr. Brinsley does?" "Brinsley's a horror! Don't talk about him--especially here." "I don't mean to. I hate him. But if we were going to talk about him, this would be a good place--one's sure that he's not just round the corner of the verandah making one of my three cousins miserable." "How do you mean?" "Why--they all love him. Can't you see it? I don't mean figuratively. Not a bit. They're in love with him, poor dears!" "Nonsense! not really?" Lawrence laughed incredulously. "Yes--really. It's a rather dismal sort of love--they've kept their hearts in pickle for such an age, you know--old pickles aren't good, either. I've no patience with old maids who fall in love and make fools of themselves!" "Perhaps they can't help it," suggested the young man. "Nobody can help falling in love, you know." "No," answered Fanny, rather doubtfully. "Perhaps not. I don't know. It depends."