Then she had told him the thing that had troubled her from the beginning. "A Westmore marry a Penniman? We can't do it, Garvin--ever." And Garvin had been silent then, thinking; she had felt his hands grow burning hot. Then he said steadily: "The city is not the Ridge, Ann. If you'll only love me completely, as I love you, what seems impossible here may be possible there. I want you, just mine to love and care for always." Then she had told him with complete honesty. "I don't know whether I love you enough to marry you, but I can't bear to have you go away from me." He had made his usual appeal, his own unhappiness, and Ann had almost yielded him her promise. But when she thought it all over she was not happy; she was so doubtful of her own feelings. And she had another anxiety. Edward Westmore had given her a number of books, and she had seen him several times. Every day there had been a book for her in the chinkapin bushes. With the instinct for making herself doubly desired, she did not always stay to thank him. But sometimes she had waited in the hollow, and Edward came and sat at her feet. Then they talked. They had been less exciting but more satisfying hours than she had with Garvin. Edward told her wonderful things, interesting things. She felt like an ignorant child when she was with him, and yet she knew that he liked whatever she said, and that he loved to look at her, and that he touched her with a certain tender reverence. She thought of him as a very dear friend. It was some time before she told him how things were at the farm. Before she realized, she had told him about it, and he had said: "Never mind, Ann, be patient. There is the future--you will leave the farm, one of these days." He had spoken quietly enough, but Ann had seen the color come slowly into his face. Though he had turned to look at the water, she had seen and wondered. Was he beginning to care for her--as Garvin did? Such a possibility had never before occurred to her! He had seemed so much older than Garvin--old enough to be her father. It made her very uncomfortable, the first touch of self-consciousness she had had while with him. For several days after that, she had taken her book and hurried away. Then Ben Brokaw had added to her anxiety. They talked together as always, she and Ben. Though he had said nothing, Ann knew that he understood about her father and herself. On the evening of that Sunday when she had met her father, she had found on her window-sill a box lined with pine-needles and on them several sprays of arbutus. She knew instantly that Ben had put them there, climbed to the roof to do it. His was the language of the woods: Ann knew from the pine-needles that Ben had been somewhere about when she had lain sobbing beneath the pine trees. And she had known just how to thank him; she had pinned a bit of the arbutus to her dress the next morning, and had smiled at him. "It's sweet," was all she had said. And all Ben said was "Um!"