He knew everything about her life . She told him her simple history freely . She often mentioned her uncle and aunt and seemed to regard them with deep affection . She rarely spoke of her mother . Eric came somehow to understand , less from what she said than from what she did not say , that Kilmeny , though she had loved her mother , had always been rather afraid of her . There had not been between them the natural beautiful confidence of mother and child . Of Neil , she wrote frequently at first , and seemed very fond of him . Later she ceased to mention him . Perhaps -- for she was marvellously quick to catch and interpret every fleeting change of expression in his voice and face -- she discerned what Eric did not know himself -- that his eyes clouded and grew moody at the mention of Neil 's name . Once she asked him naively , `` Are there many people like you out in the world ? '' `` Thousands of them , '' said Eric , laughing . She looked gravely at him . Then she gave her head a quick decided little shake . `` I do not think so , '' she wrote . `` I do not know much of the world , but I do not think there are many people like you in it . '' One evening , when the far-away hills and fields were scarfed in gauzy purples , and the intervales were brimming with golden mists , Eric carried to the old orchard a little limp , worn volume that held a love story . It was the first thing of the kind he had ever read to her , for in the first novel he had lent her the love interest had been very slight and subordinate . This was a beautiful , passionate idyl exquisitely told . He read it to her , lying in the grass at her feet ; she listened with her hands clasped over her knee and her eyes cast down . It was not a long story ; and when he had finished it he shut the book and looked up at her questioningly .
`` Do you like it , XXXXX ? ''
Eric Kilmeny Neil evening feet first idyl intervales purples story