He shut his eyes, and her image sprang up before him, quietly luminous and attended with good thoughts.
The river might run for ever; the birds fly higher and higher till they touched the stars.

He saw it was empty bustle after all; for here, without stirring a feet, waiting patiently in his own narrow valley, he also had attained the better sunlight.
The next day Will made a sort of declaration across the dinner-table, while the parson was filling his pipe.
'Miss Marjory,' he said, 'I never knew any one I liked so well as you.

I am mostly a cold, unkindly sort of man; not from want of heart, but out of strangeness in my way of thinking; and people seem far away from me.
'Tis as if there were a circle round me, which kept every one out but you; I can hear the others talking and laughing; but you come quite close.

Maybe, this is disagreeable to you ?' he asked.
Marjory made no answer.
'Speak up, girl,' said the parson.
'Nay, now,' returned Will, 'I wouldn't press her, parson.

I feel tongue- tied myself, who am not used to it; and she's a woman, and little more than a child, when all is said.