`` Good old David ! He is quaking with fear that I am up to something he ca n't approve of , but he wo n't say a word by way of attempting to force my confidence . '' It could not long remain a secret in Lindsay that `` the Master '' was going to the Gordon place on courting thoughts intent . Mrs. Williamson kept her own and Eric 's counsel ; the Gordons said nothing ; but the secret leaked out and great was the surprise and gossip and wonder . One or two incautious people ventured to express their opinion of the Master 's wisdom to the Master himself ; but they never repeated the experiment . Curiosity was rife . A hundred stories were circulated about Kilmeny , all greatly exaggerated in the circulation . Wise heads were shaken and the majority opined that it was a great pity . The Master was a likely young fellow ; he could have his pick of almost anybody , you might think ; it was too bad that he should go and take up with that queer , dumb niece of the Gordons who had been brought up in such a heathenish way . But then you never could guess what way a man 's fancy would jump when he set out to pick him a wife . They guessed Neil Gordon did n't like it much . He seemed to have got dreadful moody and sulky of late and would n't sing in the choir any more . Thus the buzz of comment and gossip ran . To those two in the old orchard it mattered not a whit . Kilmeny knew nothing of gossip . To her , Lindsay was as much of an unknown world as the city of Eric 's home . Her thoughts strayed far and wide in the realm of her fancy , but they never wandered out to the little realities that hedged her strange life around . In that life she had blossomed out , a fair , unique thing . There were times when Eric almost regretted that one day he must take her out of her white solitude to a world that , in the last analysis , was only Lindsay on a larger scale , with just the same pettiness of thought and feeling and opinion at the bottom of it . He wished he might keep her to himself for ever , in that old , spruce-hidden orchard where the roses fell .
One day he indulged himself XXXXX the fulfillment of the whim he had formed when Kilmeny had told him she thought herself ugly .
To about around as for in like of that with