She hid her face on his shoulder. "Oh no, no, no; I could not; I should feel ashamed. But why do I feel ashamed, David? Is not loving right?" "Right? to be sure it is. Nothing more so! And the pleasantest kind of right, too, to my thinking. Eh, little one?" "David, I have heard--are not people who love each other married--at least sometimes? and after that they are not afraid, or sad, or ashamed?" A smile hovered on David's handsome lips. "Married, yes, stupid people get married. Timid folks, who are afraid to manage their own affairs, and can't be easy till they've called in the parson to help them out. They're the folks that don't love each other right down hard, as you and I do. They're suspicious, and afraid of being left in the lurch; so they stand up in a church and tie themselves together by a troublesome knot they call marriage. No, no; we've nothing to do with that; we're much better off as it is." "But my father and mother were married, and they were not suspicious," ventured Swanhilda again, after a pause. "Oh, ay, they were married," assented David; adding, half to himself, "and if they were alive, too, and anxious to fill a son-in-law's pockets, I'd open mine, and gladly. But my father and mother were not married," he resumed to Swanhilda, with another smile, "so you see we've a good example either way." She made no reply, but lifted her head from his shoulder and sat twisting the necklace between her restless fingers, her eyes fixed absently on the darkness. The clasps of the necklace came unawares apart, and it slipped from her bosom to the ground. She uttered a little cry, and stood up with her hands clasped, all of a tremble. "I have lost it!" she said. "David, some harm is coming to me!" "Nonsense! here it is, as good as ever." He picked it up as he spoke, and drawing her down beside him, fastened it again round her neck, and then kissed her face and lips. "There, there, you're all right. Did you think it was dropped in the mill-race?" "Some harm is coming," she repeated. "It has never fallen from me since my mother put it on my shoulders, and said it would keep me from being hurt or drowned, but that I must never part from it. But I trust you, oh, my love! I trust you. Something seems wrong somehow; I have given you all myself...." "Lean close up to me, little one; rest that soft little cheek of yours against mine, and have done with crying now, or I'll think you mean to melt all away and leave me; and what would I do then?" She turned and clasped her arms around him with a kind of fierceness. "I leave you, David? Oh--ha, ha, ha! Oh, but you must never leave me, my love--love--love! Oh, what should I do if you were to leave me?" "Hush, girl; hush! you'll rouse the house, laughing and crying in the same minute! Don't you know I won't leave you? There--hush! You'll wake Gloam else."