And he drew me to him almost fiercely, while I quivered in every nerve, and answered: 

“Louis, do you know me well?  Can you not understand my heart?  How can I help loving you?”

He loosened his grasp about me, and as his arm fell from my waist, tears fell at his feet.  Oh, what a nature was his!  Then turning again to me—­“Will you wear this?” and a ring of turquoise and pearls was slipped on my finger, while in his hand he held a richly-carved shell comb.

“This is for your midnight hair Emily, wear it always,” and he placed it among the coils of my hair.

Silence followed for a little time, and then Louis with his soulful eyes fixed on something afar off, spoke with great fervor of the life he longed for.

“Emily, you do not know me yet,” he said.

“I know you better than you know yourself, but I am to you a puzzle, and oh, if I could skip the years that lie between to-day and the day when you and I shall really understand each other!  Perfect in peace that day I know will come, but there are clouds between.  My father willed that I should have this education I am getting.  I need it, I suppose, but I have greater needs, and cannot tell you about them till I am free.”

“Two years—­twenty-four months;” and his eyes fell, as he added despairingly, “What a long time to wait.”  Then turning to me, “But you will love me, you have said so?”

I looked my thoughts, and he answered them.

“Do not ever think so of me, I am only too sane, I have found my life before the time.”

“Oh!  Louis,” I cried, and then he answered with the words,

“My little mother knows it—­she knows I love you.  She knows my inmost soul, and answers me with her pure eyes.  But ah! her eyes have not the light of yours; I want you to myself, to help me, and I will love you all my life.”

I was amazed, and wondered why it was—­this strange boy had been much in society, and why should I, an unsophisticated, homely girl, bring such a shower of feeling on myself.

“Could it be real and would it last?”

He comprehended my thought again and replied: 

“You are not homely; I see your soul in your eyes; you are younger than I am; I have never seen your equal, and I know years will tell you I am only true to my heart, and we will work together—­ah! we will work for something good, we will not be all for ourselves, ma belle,” and on my forehead he left a kiss that burned with the great thoughts of his heart.

I could only feel that I was in the presence of a wonderful power, and at that moment he seemed a divinity.  The moon came over the hill, and with his arm in mine we turned our steps homeward, and Clara met us half-way, and putting her hand fondly in Louis’ said: 

“My boy is out under the moon.  I feared he was lost.”

“My little mother!” and he gathered her under his wing, as it seemed, and we were soon at the gate of home.  Louis and his mother passed in at the side door.  As they did so, I fell back a step or two, turned my steps toward the old apple tree, and there, sitting against its old trunk, I talked aloud and cried and said: