He was able to point out where some had fallen the previous
year. He stopped in the middle of his conversation to tell her to put up
her umbrella.
"I can't trouble to hold it for you," he said; "but I don't mind opening
it. The sun is blazing to-day, and you will get your eyes bad if you are
not careful. That would be a pity, for you seem to me rather better
lately."
"What a confession for you to make of any one!" said she.
"Oh, I don't mean to say that you will ever get well," he added grimly.
"You seem to have pulled yourself in too many directions for that. You
have tried to be too alive; and, now you are obliged to join the genus
cabbage."
"I am certainly less ill than I was when I first came," she said; "and I
feel in a better frame of mind altogether. I am learning a good deal in
sad Petershof."
"That is more than I have done," he answered.
"Well, perhaps you teach instead," she said. "You have taught me several
things. Now, go on telling me about the country people. You like them?"
"I love them," he said simply. "I know them well, and they know me. You
see I have been in this district so long now, and have walked about so
much, that the very wood cutters know me; and the drivers give me lifts
on their piles of timber.
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