His
hand had almost touched hers, when he stopped.
"What has happened?" he asked gravely.
"Nothing," she said, turning half away, and searching the ground with
her eyes, as if she had lost something. "Only I must be going back
now."
"You shall go back at once, if you wish it," he said, flushing
slightly. "But you have been crying; why?"
Frank as Miss Nellie wished to be, she could not bring herself to say
that her feet hurt her, and the dust and heat were ruining her
complexion. It was therefore with a half-confident belief that her
troubles were really of a moral quality that she answered,
"Nothing--nothing, but--but--it's wrong to come here."
"But you did not think it was wrong when you agreed to come, at our
last meeting," said the young man, with that persistent logic which
exasperates the inconsequent feminine mind. "It cannot be any more
wrong to-day."
"But it was not so far off," murmured the young girl, without looking
up.
"Oh, the distance makes it more improper, then," he said abstractedly;
but after a moment's contemplation of her half-averted face, he asked
gravely, "Has any one talked to you about me?"
Ten minutes before, Nellie had been burning to unburden herself of her
father's warning, but now she felt she would not.
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