The woods were very quiet.  There was no sound of bird or insect, and the occasional hare, or “Molly Cotton-tail,” as Annie delightedly called it, who hopped across the road, made no noise at all.  A gentle wind among the tops of the taller trees made a sound as of a distant sea; but, besides this, little was heard but the low, crunching noise of the wheels, and the voices of Lawrence and Miss Annie.

Reaching a place where the road branched, Lawrence stopped the horse, and looked up each leafy lane.  They were completely deserted.  White people seldom walked abroad at this hour on Sunday, and the negroes of the neighborhood were at church.  “Is not this a frightfully lonely place?” he said.  “One might imagine himself in a desert.”

“I like it,” replied Annie.  “It is so different from the wild, exciting tumult of that church.  I am glad you took me away.  At first I would not have missed it for the world, but there seemed to come into the stormy scene something oppressive, and almost terrifying.”

“I am glad I took you away,” said Lawrence, “but it seems to me that your impression was not altogether natural.  I thought that, amid all that mad enthusiasm, you were over-excited, not depressed.  A solemn solitude like this would, to my thinking, be much more likely to lower your spirits.  I don’t like solitude, myself, and therefore, I suppose it is that I thought an impressible nature, like yours, would find something sad in the loneliness of these silent woods.”

Annie turned, and fixed on him her large blue eyes.  “But I am not alone,” she said.

As Lawrence looked into her eyes he saw that they were as clear as the purest crystal, and that he could look through them straight into her soul, and there he saw that this woman loved him.  The vision was as sudden as if it had been a night scene lighted up by a flash of lightning, but it was as clear and plain as if it had been that same scene under the noonday sun.

There are times in the life of a man, when the goddess of Reasonable Impulse raises her arms above her head, and allows herself a little yawn.  Then she takes off her crown and hangs it on the back of her throne; after which she rests her sceptre on the floor, and, rising, stretches herself to her full height, and goes forth to take a long, refreshing walk by the waters of Unreflection.  Then her minister, Prudence, stretches himself upon a bench, and, with his handkerchief over his eyes, composes himself for a nap.  Discretion, Worldly Wisdom, and other trusted officers of her court, and even, sometimes, that agile page called Memory, no sooner see their royal mistress depart than, by various doors, they leave the palace and wander far away.  Then, silently, with sparkling eyes, and parted lips, comes that fair being, Unthinking Love.  She puts one foot upon the lower step of the throne; she looks about her; and, with a quick bound, she seats herself.  Upon her tumbled curls she hastily puts the crown; with her small white hand she grasps the sceptre; and then, rising, waves it, and issues her commands.  The crowd of emotions which serve as her satellites, seize the great seal from the sleeping Prudence, and the new Queen reigns!