Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/123

Rh without touching his hand, and cried, "Oh, what a lovely drive we have had; I never had such a good time in my life, Mr. Bassett," that her happiness was as purely a sensuous one as if she had been a faun, and that she had said the same thing thousands of times before? Her faculty of enjoyment was simply a superb gift; it was the health and mirthfulness of a young animal added to the keen susceptibility and passionless passion of the artist nature: the overflow of all this, the effervescence of these two qualities, gave a sparkling enchantment to her life and behavior, which was contagious and irresistible to all persons who did not pause to analyze or question it. John Bassett neither questioned nor analyzed it. In the intervals of his absence from her, he simply recalled her. When he was with her, he simply felt and heard her.

And so the six swift weeks sped on, and the day came at last when John Bassett had to say good-by to Fanny Lane at the little Deerway railway station, to which he had driven them early one crisp October morning. In the hurry of checking luggage and bestowing Aunt Jane and her canary bird and her many parcels in the train, there was little chance for farewell words; but just at the last moment, Mrs. Lane said very cordially, for she had come to have an honest liking for the grave and manly young farmer:—

"Whenever you come to town, Mr. Bassett, be