She was very straightforward, but he could see that if she was too modest to be bold, she was much too simple to be shy.

"Have you no charge to lay upon me ?" he asked--to ask her something.
She looked at him a moment and then, although she was not shy, she blushed.

"Make him do his best," she said.
Rowland noted the soft intensity with which the words were uttered.

"Do you take a great interest in him ?" he demanded.
"Certainly." "Then, if he will not do his best for you, he will not do it for me." She turned away with another blush, and Rowland took his leave.
He walked homeward, thinking of many things.

The great Northampton elms interarched far above in the darkness, but the moon had risen and through scattered apertures was hanging the dusky vault with silver lamps.