“What a beautiful country we are in!  I have forgotten all about the danger and the hardship and the evil men.  Have you ever seen any place like it?”

“No.  For a time we have been riding in fairyland.”

“I know why,” said the boy.

“Why?”

“It is because we are riding together.  It is because I see you.”

“Oh, dear!  I can not see you.  Let us get off and walk,” she proposed.

They dismounted.

“Did you mean that honestly?”

“Honestly,” he answered.

She looked up at him and put her hand over her mouth.

“I was going to say something.  It would have been most unmaidenly,” she remarked.

“There’s something in me that will not stay unsaid.  I love you,” he declared.

She held up her hand with a serious look in her eyes.  Then, for a moment, the boy returned to the world of reality.

“I am sorry.  Forgive me.  I ought not to have said it,” he stammered.

“But didn’t you really mean it?” she asked with troubled eyes.

“I mean that and more, but I ought not to have said it now.  It isn’t fair.  You have just escaped from a great danger and have got a notion that you are in debt to me and you don’t know much about me anyhow.”

She stood in his path looking up at him.

“Jack,” she whispered.  “Please say it again.”

No, it was not gone.  They were still in the magic garden.

“I love you and I wish this journey could go on forever,” he said.

She stepped closer and he put his arm around her and kissed her lips.  She ran away a few steps.  Then, indeed, they were back on the familiar trail in the thirty-mile bush.  A moose bird was screaming at them.  She turned and said: 

“I wanted you to know but I have said nothing.  I couldn’t.  I am under a sacred promise.  You are a gentleman and you will not kiss me or speak of love again until you have talked with my father.  It is the custom of our country.  But I want you to know that I am very happy.”

“I don’t know how I dared to say and do what I did, but I couldn’t help it”

“I couldn’t help it either.  I just longed to know if you dared.”

“The rest will be in the future—­perhaps far in the future.”

His voice trembled a little.

“Not far if you come to me, but I can wait—­I will wait.”  She took his hand as they were walking beside each other and added:  “For you.”

“I, too, will wait,” he answered, “and as long as I have to.”

Mrs. Hare, walking down the trail to meet them, had come near.  Their journey out of the wilderness had ended, but for each a new life had begun.