When we came to the Spring Waiontha I had walked straight into the water except for her, so dark it was around us.  And: 

“How can you ever get back alone?” said she.

“Oho!” said I, laughing, “I left the willow-tips a-dangle, breaking them with my left hand.  I am woodsman enough to feel my way out.”

“But not woodsman enough to spare your shins in the clearing,” she said saucily.

“Shall we sit and talk?” I said.

“Oh, Euan!  And my bath!  I am fairly melting as I stand here.”

“But I have not seen you for two entire nights, Lois.”

“I know, poor boy, but you seem to have survived.”

“When I do not see you every day I am most miserable.”

“So am I—­ but I am reasonable, too.  I say to myself, if I don’t see Euan today I will nevertheless see him to-morrow, or the day after, or the next, God willing——­”

“Lois!”

“What?”

“How can you reason so coldly?”

“I—­ reason coldly?  There is nothing cold in me where you are concerned.  But I have to console myself for not seeing you——­”

“I am inconsolable,” said I fervently.

“No more than am I,” she retorted hotly, as though jealous that I should arrogate to myself a warmer feeling concerning her than she entertained for me.

“I care so much for you, Lois,” said I.

“And I for you.”

“Not as I care for you.”

“Exactly as you care for me.  Do you think me insensible to gratitude and affection?”

“I do not desire your gratitude for a few articles——­”

“It isn’t for them—­ though I’m grateful for those things too!  It’s gratitude to God for giving me you, Euan Loskiel!  And you ought to take shame to yourself for doubting it!”

I said nothing, being unable to see her in the darkness, much less perceive what expression she wore for her rebuke to me.  Then as I stood silent, I felt her little hands groping on my arm; and my own closed on them and I laid my lips to them.

“Ai-me!” she said softly.  “Why do we fight and fret each other?  Why do I, who adore you so, let you vex me and stir me to say what I do not mean at all.  Always remember, Euan—­ always, always—­ that whatever I am unkind enough to say or do to vex you, in my secret mind I know that no other man on earth is comparable to you—­ and that you reign first in my heart—­ first, and all by yourself, alone.”

“And will you try to love me some day, Lois?”

“I do.”

“I mean——­”

“Oh, Euan, I do—­ I do!  Only—­ you know—­ not in the manner you once spoke of——­”

“But I love you in that manner.”