Page:Crawford - Love in idleness.djvu/137

 they were walking in the woods, "I don't half mind your being such a bad hand at things. It's funny. I thought I should, at first—but I don't."

"I'm awfully glad," answered Lawrence, not finding anything else to say to express his gratitude.

"Oh, you may well be!" laughed Fanny. "I don't forgive everybody for being a duffer. And that's what you are, you know. You don't mind my saying so?"

"Oh no, not at all." The tone in which he spoke did not express much conviction, however.

"I believe you do," said Fanny, thoughtfully.

They were following a narrow path which led upwards along the bank of a brook under over arching trees. Here and there the bank had fallen away, and the woodmen had laid down 'slabs' of the rippings first taken off by the saw mill in squaring timber. It was damp underfoot, for it had lately rained, and the wet, chocolate-coloured dead leaves of the previous year filled the chinks between the bits of wood, and