Thank you for your surgery upon my thumb--" She naively placed the tip of it between her lips and looked at him, standing there like a schoolgirl in her fresh gown, burnished hair loosened and curling in riotous beauty across cheeks and ears.
He had seated himself on the wheelbarrow again; she stood looking down at him, hands now bracketed on her narrow hips--so close that the fresh fragrance of her grew faintly perceptible--a delicate atmosphere of youth mingling with the perfume of the young garden.
Nina, basket on her arm, snipping away with her garden shears, glanced over her shoulder--and went on, snipping.

They did not notice how far away her agricultural ardour led her--did not notice when she stood a moment at the gate looking back at them, or when she passed out, pretty head bent thoughtfully, the shears swinging loose at her girdle.
The prairie rosebuds in Eileen's basket exhaled their wild, sweet odour; and Selwyn, breathing it, removed his hat like one who faces a cooling breeze, and looked up at the young girl standing before him as though she were the source of all things sweet and freshening in this opening of the youngest year of his life.
She said, smiling absently at his question: "Certainly one can grow younger; and you have done it in a day, here with me." She looked down at his hair; it was bright and inclined to wave a little, but whether the lighter colour at the temples was really silvered or only a paler tint she was not sure.
"You are very like a boy, sometimes," she said--"as young as Gerald, I often think--especially when your hat is off.

You always look so perfectly groomed: I wonder--I wonder what you would look like if your hair were rumpled ?" "Try it," he suggested lazily.
"I?
I don't think I dare--" She raised her hand, hesitated, the gay daring in her eyes deepening to audacity.

"Shall I ?" "Why not ?" "T-touch your hair ?--rumple it ?--as I would Gerald's!.

.