"I thought it was louder," she said, "or higher--or something."
It was quite husky and low, and he pronounced a word here and there with a brogue like Norah's, only pleasanter, with a kind of singing sound. It was never the word you expected. You had to watch for it. She could hear it now.
"I know who you are, and I know where you live."
"At the Falls, and I know when you moved there--five years ago, or six."
As you grew older, and learned to call more boys and girls in the school by name, and more of the clerks in the shops, you discovered new people in the town where you thought you knew everybody, and it made the town infinitely large. But this boy had not been so near her, or she would have seen him. He could not have been in school with her. He must have worked on a farm and studied by himself with the grammar-school teacher at the Falls, and taken special examinations to enter the Junior class this year, as Willard said that some boy at the Falls was doing. He must be that boy or Judith would surely have seen him.
"You know a lot." In his soft brogue this sounded like the most complimentary thing that could be said.
"But you don't remember me." This had troubled her at first. Now it seemed like the most delicious of jokes, and they laughed at it together.
"That was the first thing you said to me."
"Isn't it queer"--Judith's eyes widened and darkened as if it were something more than queer, something far worse--"so queer! I can't think what the first thing was that you said to me."
They confronted this problem in silence, staring at each other with wide-open eyes. Though they were circling smoothly at last, carried on by the slow, sweet music, so that they hardly seemed to be moving at all, and though he did not really move his head, the boy's eyes seemed to Judith to be coming nearer to hers, nearer all the time. They were beautiful eyes, deep brown, and very clear. His brown hair grew in a squarish line across his forehead, and waved softly at the temples. It looked as if he had brushed it hard there to brush the curl out, but it was curliest there.
"You've got the brownest eyes," said Judith.
"You've got the biggest eyes. Won't you tell me your name?"
Judith did not answer. She looked away from the disconcerting brown eyes and down at her hand, against his shoulder, her own little hand, with the careful manicure and the dull polish that was all her mother permitted; bare of rings, though Norah had given her a beautiful garnet ring for Christmas. How shiny his coat-sleeve was, and her hand looked unfamiliar to her--not like her own at all. She pressed tighter against his shoulder to steady herself.