He turned with a motion of the arm, as if he swung off a
burden, and met her eye. He laughed, and drew near.
"I am tempted to return to that suspicion of mine when I first met you,
Miss Marguerite," said he. "You take shape from solitude and empty air
as easily as a Dryad steps from her tree."
"There are no Dryads now," said Marguerite, sententiously.
"Then you confess to being a myth?"
"I confess to being tired, Mr. Raleigh."
Mr. Raleigh's manner changed, at her petulance and fatigue, to the old
air of protection, and he gave her his hand. It was pleasant to be the
object of his care, to be with him as at first, to renew their former
relation. She acquiesced, and walked beside him.
"You have had some weary travel," he said, "and probably not more than
half of it in the path."
And she feared he would glance at the rents in her frock, forgetting
that they were not sufficiently infrequent facts to be noticeable.
"He treats me like a child," she thought. "He expects me to tear my
dress! He forgets, that, while thirteen years were making a statue of
her, they were making a woman of me!" And she snatched away her hand.
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