Silence answered like the silence which follows an execution.
"I'm not worthy of such an offer," said Ellen, suddenly wretched. "I'm nothing; I know nothing. I'm hasty and bitter and hateful."
"You are worthy!" protested Amos. The language of the stories he had been reading, much as he loathed them, helped him to find words. He pleaded with her, not for her sake but for his own, that she would save him from despair. "There isn't any one like you. You grow more beautiful each day. I was in Harrisburg, and there I sat in the station and watched the people come and go, especially the young girls, and there was no one who carried her head so high and who had such deep, deep eyes, like a dark night, Ellen, when the sky is very clear and soft. There's no one round here with a mind like yours. I'm not old-fashioned; I understand that it is the day of greater liberty. I'll let you judge and decide in everything. Don't say you aren't worthy; that isn't true!"
Ellen looked down at the ground. Praise like this was new and not unwelcome, even though it came from the lips of so strange a lover.
"If you would come to me, I believe the peace of God would come to you."
Now Ellen pressed her whole body against the tree, so as to get farther away. The peace of God! That was not what she longed for.
"You're mistaken in me," said she. "There's only one thing I want and that is to learn. I'm grateful to you, and I shall always think kindly of you; you are my best friend, but I don't wish to marry any one."
"It is God's holy ordinance," said Amos thickly. "It saves from gross sin. Outside its bonds men and women burn with sinful passion. Have I made you afraid of me, Ellen? I have loved you since you came a little child into my school, and indeed, before that."
Into the minds of both came the scene enacted on this spot, the childish arms flung out, the kiss given and taken.