’Sure,’ said Alison slowly, as though she were thinking out some abstruse and difficult problem, ’sure, ’tis the people that love each other most that never do say "I love you." All my life long I’ve loved my father and my sisters and little Jacky when he came, but I never thought to say "I love you" to one of them. If you know a thing in your heart, the less need to have it on your lips. Don’t you think so, sir?’ ’True, very true, Ally,’ said Herries, thinking to himself what a pearl of sweet sense he had found, and how she suited him; ’only—only—’ ’Only what?’ asked Alison, innocently. ’Only I would it were the General’s Entry, dear,’ whispered Herries, at her ear, ’with walls and nothing but a dim old lamp....’ ’Ah, but it’s not, sir!’ cried Alison, pulling away from him, scarlet with blushes; ’’tis the open field, and there comes Willy!’ ’Plague take the child—so he does!’ said Herries. He had given the boy a shilling to spend at a booth in the suburb, and it seemed to him hardly a shilling’s-worth of absence that had been granted. Willy came racing towards them, vociferous, flying a newly-purchased kite above his head. ’So we must go, I suppose, sir?’ said Alison, wistfully. ’’Tis getting mighty cold, though we haven’t noticed it,’ Herries observed, as they walked townwards across the fields. ’I think I smell the snow.’ A thin, yellowish film had gathered over the bright sun, which, day after day, had made the long, strong frost endurable. The cold, indeed, became perceptibly greater, and a slight, shivering wind set in from the north. ’Haste you home, child,’ said Herries, ’and be in before the storm. You may guess whether I come soon to the Potterrow or not.’ ’N—not too often, sir,’ whispered Alison. The whisper might have stood for the mere coyness of a girl, and so Herries translated it. But in Alison’s mind was the troubled knowledge of how little welcome her lover was just now, in the little room which his own liberality helped to make so cosy and so home-like. It was very hard, she thought, but time would doubtless show a way out of the difficulty, if one were only patient.