"Isn't that rather mean?" For some reason she spoke quite snappily. The soldiers clearly didn't matter to her, and something else did. "Which of the soldiers provided our breakfast, madam? We might as well leave a note asking them to pick us up at the 'Ring of Bells.' And, madam, you can trust me to make Dick Doley content enough some day." She smiled, with her characteristic touch of chagrin. I liked her best so, for she never looked daintier. "With a bit of luck, Master Wheatman," she said whimsically, "there will surely come a time when you'll be wrong and I right. Then, sir, look out for crowing. I've never been so unlucky with a man in my life. But you'll slip some day!" "Surely, madam," I said, and smiled, "and then I'll abide your gloating. Now, pray you, let us be off. We've hardly a minute to spare." Without losing another second we started on our long walk. It was now about ten of the clock. The sun was shining cheerily, with power enough to melt the white rime off every blackened twig it lit upon, and it was still so cold that sharp walking was a keen delight. "Eight miles and more of it, Mistress Waynflete. I hope you can stand the pace and the distance." "I'm a soldier's daughter, not an alderman's," she replied curtly. The vicar was right. "Oliver," he said to me one day, "what is the difference between the Hebrew Bible and a woman?" "Sir," said I, gaping with astonishment, "I know not, but of a truth it seems considerable." "It is, Oliver," replied the sweet old scholar. "Man can understand the one in a dozen years, if he try, but the other not in a lifetime, strive he as earnestly as he may." This fragment of my dear friend's talk came back to me now as we walked in silence side by side. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her sweet face set in earnest thinking, her rich lips compressed, her speaking eyes fixed resolutely ahead. Not having to trouble about finding the road, and there being no sign of anyone, either enemy or neutral, stirring on the countryside, I let her go on thinking, and set myself the pleasant but impossible task of accounting to myself for her mood. I went over all we had said and done together that day, and at last, after perhaps half an hour of unbroken silence, fell back on what seemed the only possible explanation. She was thinking of her father. But why that suspicion of asperity on her face? Was this explanation correct? The vicar was right. She suddenly slipped her hand round my arm, looking at me with laughing lips and dancing eyes, and said, "Isn't it splendid to be alive on a day like this?" "Yes, indeed it is," I replied, "but from your looks and your long silence, I should hardly have judged that you were thinking so." "You have been taking stock of me, sir!" "Certainly I have been wondering why you were so silent, and looked so ... grave." "Be honest and fear not, Master Wheatman. You were not going to say 'grave.'"