“And supposing my father is never found—how shall I ever repay your father and you?”
The fine dark eyes of Harry Northend glowed with a radiant light, as he leaned forward, and placing his arm around the neck of Little Rifle, imprinted a warm kiss upon her cheek, and said, in low, ardent tones:
“By becoming my wife, and thus I shall be repaid a thousand times over. I understand now how it was that, when I looked up in your face, as I began to recover my senses, after you had dragged me from the water below the falls, a feeling shot through me like the shock of electricity. It puzzled me to understand what it meant; I thought yours was the handsomest face I ever looked upon, and it often seemed to me that there was a feminine delicacy and refinement about you, in spite of the uncivilized life you were leading. I found, too, that your manner and conversation proved that you had received a partial education. But above all, your heroic character, as you showed it when you leaped into the water, drew me toward you as the pole draws the magnet.
“I was puzzled and not a little hurt,” continued the impassioned Harry, as he still kept one arm around the neck of Little Rifle, and held her hand imprisoned in his own, “at your shyness, especially after Old Ruff appeared upon the scene. It seemed to me that I was distrusted by both of you, but now I can understand that it was only your instinctive maidenly modesty, and I honor you for it.”
The cheeks of the beautiful girl (as Little Rifle must henceforth be regarded) grew rosier and redder, and now flushed to scarlet, as she never once raised her eyes from the ground, and Harry poured out his burning, impassioned words.
“But with the discovery of the secret comes the discovery that I love you, with my whole heart and soul. I feel that my future is to be linked with yours; if I could know this minute that we were to be separated, I would want to die. Let me pledge my love to you and receive yours—or the promise of it at some future time, and then we will turn to the great future that opens before us. We are both young yet. Everybody persists in calling me a boy, and I suppose I am, but it can’t last much longer. If my life is spared, no one can hinder me from becoming a man, and you are younger yet than I, and we shall only think of marriage as something that is to come after awhile. Sometime, when every thing is ready, I shall wed you—you shall be my bride of the wilderness. What do you say, Little Rifle? Are you prepared to give me any encouragement?”
It would seem all natural and proper that this wooing and winning should have reached its successful conclusion at once—that the beautiful forest girl should have acknowledged her love at once, and confessed that her future would be hopeless unless it echoed back the prayer of her ardent lover. But, she was truthful, and possessed rare good sense. Loving old Robsart had given her the clothes of a hunter to wear, as soon as she was able to go about, and had carefully concealed the knowledge of her sex from those with whom they happened to come in contact.
This undoubtedly was wise, as it saved her from annoying attentions and perhaps insult at the hands of the rough borderers, who occasionally saw her; but the old mountaineer had given her, after his own peculiar fashion, considerable knowledge of “society” and its usages.
And then her own instinctive maidenly sense told her that she had no means of knowing she really returned the love of the noble young fellow at her side. Gratitude and friendship she knew entered into her emotions, but she could not feel positive that there was any thing more.
She spoke, therefore, as her conscience dictated: