“I trust you will not think me unmaidenly, Henry,” said she, looking timidly up in my face.  “You won’t think worse of me, will you, for—­for almost offering myself to you?”

There was but one answer to this, and I failed not to give it.  ’Twas a very earnest answer, and she drew back a little.  Her voice grew lower and lower, while she told how, at my shaking hands the night before, she almost fainted,—­how she longed to say “Stay,” but dared not, for I was so stiff and cold:  how could she say, “Don’t go, Mr. Allen; please stay and marry me"?—­how she passed a wretched night and day, and walked out at evening to be alone,—­how she felt that she could go nowhere but to my mother’s grave,—­and, finally, how overwhelmed with joy she was when I came upon her so suddenly.

All this she told me, speaking softly and slowly, for which I was thankful; for I liked to feel the sweet words of healing, dropping one by one upon my heart.

In the midst of our talk, we heard the front-door of the house open.

“They are coming to look for me,” said Jane.  “You will go in?”

Hand in hand we walked up the pathway.  We met Ellen half-way down.  She started with surprise at seeing me.

“Why, Mr. Allen!” she exclaimed, “I thought you a hundred miles off.  Why, Jane, mother was afraid you had fallen down the well.”

She tripped gayly into the house.

“Mother!” she called out,—­“you sent me for one, and I have brought you two.”

Jane and I walked in hand in hand; for I would not let her go.  Her mother looked surprised, but well pleased.

“Mrs. Wood,” said I, “Jane has asked me to stay, and I am going to.”

Nothing more was needed; our faces told the rest.

“Now Heaven be praised,” she replied, “that we are still to have you with us!  I could not help thinking, that, if you only knew how much we cared for you, you would not have been in such a hurry to leave us.”  And she glanced significantly towards Jane.

The rest of the evening was spent in the most interesting explanations.  I passed the night at the village inn, as I had intended,—­passed it, not in sleep, but in planning and replanning, and in trying to persuade myself that “Pink and Blue” was my own to keep.

The next day I spent at the Woods’.  It was the first really happy day of my life.  In the afternoon, I took a long walk with Jane, through green lanes, and orchards white and fragrant with blossoms.  In the evening, the family assembled, and we held sweet council together.  It was decided unanimously, that, situated as I was, there was no reason for delaying the wedding,—­that I should repossess myself of the furniture I had given away, by giving new in exchange, the old being dearer to both Jane and myself,—­and, finally, that our wedding should be very quiet, and should take place as soon as Jane could be got ready.  Through it all I sat like one in a dream, assenting to everything, for everything seemed very desirable.