"You are my little lover, aren't you?" she said, with an embrace.
"Not so very little!" responded Harry, with a flush.
"Well, you love me, don't you?"
"Perhaps I do," replied he, looking smilingly into her eyes.
"You are a rogue, sir."
"I'm not a bad rogue."
"Kiss me."
Harry put his arms around Mrs. Dillingham's neck and kissed her, and received a long, passionate embrace in return, in which her starved heart expressed the best of its powerful nature.
Nor clouds nor low-born vapors drop the dew. It only gathers under a pure heaven and the tender eyes of stars. Mrs. Dillingham had always held a heart that could respond to the touch of a child. It was dark, its ways were crooked, it was not a happy heart, but for the moment her whole nature was flooded with a tender passion. A flash of lightning from heaven makes the darkest night its own, and gilds with glory the uncouth shapes that grope and crawl beneath its cover.
"And your name is Harry?" she said.