Seeing the Story Girl slipping away with a disapproving face I joined her . `` What is the matter , Sara ? '' I asked . `` I hate to hear them talking like that about Miss Reade and Mr. Dale , '' she answered vehemently . `` It 's really all so beautiful -- but they make it seem silly and absurd , somehow . '' `` You might tell me all about it , Sara , '' I insinuated . `` I would n't tell -- and I 'd understand . '' `` Yes , I think you would , '' she said thoughtfully . `` But I ca n't tell it even to you because I ca n't tell it well enough yet . I 've a feeling that there 's only one way to tell it -- and I do n't know the way yet . Some day I 'll know it -- and then I 'll tell you , Bev . '' Long , long after she kept her word . Forty years later I wrote to her , across the leagues of land and sea that divided us , and told her that Jasper Dale was dead ; and I reminded her of her old promise and asked its fulfilment . In reply she sent me the written love story of Jasper Dale and Alice Reade . Now , when Alice sleeps under the whispering elms of the old Carlisle churchyard , beside the husband of her youth , that story may be given , in all its old-time sweetness , to the world . CHAPTER XXV . THE LOVE STORY OF THE AWKWARD MAN -LRB- Written by the Story Girl -RRB- Jasper Dale lived alone in the old homestead which he had named Golden Milestone . In Carlisle this giving one 's farm a name was looked upon as a piece of affectation ; but if a place must be named why not give it a sensible name with some meaning to it ? Why Golden Milestone , when Pinewood or Hillslope or , if you wanted to be very fanciful , Ivy Lodge , might be had for the taking ? He had lived alone at Golden Milestone since his mother 's death ; he had been twenty then and he was close upon forty now , though he did not look it .
But neither could it be said that he looked young ; he had never at any time looked young XXXXX common youth ; there had always been something in his appearance that stamped him as different from the ordinary run of men , and , apart from his shyness , built up an intangible , invisible barrier between him and his kind .
about across because for if like of to under with