And then Lucina curtesied low, with her fair curls drooping forward over her blushing face and neck, as pink as her corals, and Jerome bowed and strove to say something, but he knew not what, and never knew what he said, nor anybody else.

“’Twas the new clothes, boy,” said the Squire in his ear.  “By the Lord Harry, ’twas much as ever I knew you myself at first!  I took you for an earl over from the old country.  Lucina meant no harm.  Go you now and have a talk with her.”

Jerome wondered anxiously afterwards if he had spoken properly to the Squire’s wife, to Mrs. Doctor Prescott, to Miss Camilla, and the others—­if he had looked, even, at anybody but Lucina.  He remembered the party as he might have remembered a kaleidoscope, of which only one combination of form and color abided with him.  He realized all beside, as a broad effect with no detail.  The card-playing and punch-drinking in the other room, the preliminary tuning of fiddles in the hall, the triumphant strains of a country dance, the weaving of the figures, the gay voices of the village youths, who lost all their abashedness as the evening went on, the supper, the table gleaming with the white lights of silver and the rainbow lustre of glass, the golden points of candles in the old candelabra, the fruity and spicy odors of cake and wine, were all as a dimness and vagueness of brilliance itself.

He did not know, even, that Lawrence Prescott was at Elmira’s side all the evening, and after his father arrived, and that Elmira danced every time with him, and set people talking and Doctor Prescott frowning.  He knew only that he had followed Lucina about, and that she seemed to encourage him with soft, leading smiles.  That they sat on a sofa in a corner, behind a door, and talked, that once they stepped out on the stoop, and even strolled a little down the path, under the trees, when she complained of the room being hot and close.  Then, without knowing whether he should do so or not, he bent towards her, with his arm crooked, and she slipped her hand in it, and they both trembled and were silent for a moment.  He knew every word that Lucina had spoken, and gave a thousand different meanings to each.  For the first time in his life, he tasted the sweets of praise from girlish lips.  Lucina had heard of his good deeds from her father, how kind he was to the poor and sick, how hard he had worked, how faithful he had been to his mother and sister.  Jerome listened with bliss, and shame that he should find it bliss.  Then Lucina and he remembered together, with that perfect time of memory which is as harmonious as any duet, all the episodes of their childhood.

“I remember how you gave me sassafras,” said Lucina, “and how you would not take the nice gingerbread that Hannah made, and how sad I felt about it.”

“I will get some more sassafras for you to-morrow,” said Jerome.

“And I will give you some more gingerbread if you will take it,” said she, with a sweet coquettishness.