"So I am, and you are nature in its sweetest and highest embodiment. Every beautiful thing in nature has long suggested you to me. Amy, I can wait. You shall have your girlhood. It seems to me now that I have loved you almost from the first hour I saw you. I have known that I loved you ever since that June evening when you left me in the rose garden. Have I not proved that I can be patient and wait?"
She only pressed her burning face closer upon his shoulder. "It's all growing clear now," she again whispered. "How blind I've been! I thought you were only my brother."
"I can be 'only your brother,' if you so wish," he said, gravely. "Your happiness is my first thought."
She looked up at him shyly, tears in her eyes, and a smile hovering about her tremulous lips. "I don't think I understood myself any better than I did you. I never had a brother, and—and—I don't believe I loved you just right for a brother;" and her face was hidden again.
His eyes went up to heaven, as if he meant that his mating should be recognized there. Then gently stroking her brown hair, he asked, "Then I shan't have to wait, Amy?"
"Am I keeping you waiting, Webb?" she faltered from her deep seclusion.
"Oh, that blessed mistletoe!" cried Webb, lifting the dewy, flower-like face and kissing it again and again. "You are my Christmas gift, Amy."
"Oh, I beg your pardon; I didn't know," began Mr. Clifford from the doorway, and was about to make a hasty and excited retreat.
"Stay, father!" cried Webb. "A year ago you received this dear girl as your daughter. She has consented to make the tie closer still if possible."
The old gentleman took Amy in his arms for a moment, and then said, "This is too good to keep to myself for a moment," and he hastened the blushing, laughing girl to his wife, and exclaimed, "See what I've brought you for a Christmas present. See what that sly, silent Webb has been up to. He has been making love to our Amy right under our noses, and we didn't know it."