“Dear Jack!”—and both her soft, white, pretty little hands met me, as I eagerly approached.
“Anna!—dearest Anna!”—I covered the rosy fingers with kisses.
“Let us be tranquil, Jack, and if possible, endeavor to be reasonable, too.”
“If I thought this could really cost one habitually discreet as you an effort, Anna?”
“One habitually discreet as I, is as likely to feel strongly on meeting an old friend, as another.”
“I think it would make me perfectly happy, could I see thee weep.”
As if waiting only for this hint, Anna burst into a flood of tears. I was frightened, for her sobs became hysterical and convulsed. Those precious sentiments which had been so long imprisoned in her gentle bosom, obtained the mastery, and I was well paid for my selfishness, by experiencing an alarm little less violent than her own outpouring of feeling.
Touching the incidents, emotions, and language of the next half hour, it is not my intention to be very communicative. Anna was ingenuous, unreserved, and, if I might judge by the rosy blushes that suffused her sweet face, and the manner in which she extricated herself from my protecting arms, I believe I must add, she deemed herself indiscreet in that she had been so unreserved and ingenuous.
“We can now converse more calmly, Jack,” the dear creature resumed, after she had erased the signs of emotion from her cheeks—“more calmly, if not more sensibly.”
“The wisdom of Solomon is not half so precious as the words I have just heard—and as for the music of spheres—”