Yes, there, at last, the queen of all his hopes and joys stood in the doorway, not indeed the Scotch lassie of his recollection and his dreams, but a vision of fair Northern loveliness whose very perfection chained to his side the arms he had raised to embrace her, and nailed his feet to the floor; so that the passionate embrace of welcome which he had so often rehearsed in his own mind, all miscarried.
“Miss Farquharson—Jeannie—my darling!” he exclaimed with a faltering voice regaining control of himself and stretching out, not his arms but his hand, “I scarcely know you, you have grown so beautiful—what, what have you done with my shy little Scotch lassie?” Then he laid his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her eyes.
Yes, they at least were the same, they had not changed while he dreamed of them these three long years, but they were not wont to droop before his gaze then as now.
Then his arms stole softly around the lissom waist, and gently and almost reverentially he stooped his lips to hers.
“Oh, please, Dick, don’t,” suddenly exclaimed the young lady with a struggle, and a rapidly rising color in the clear brown cheek.
“Why, Jeannie dear, what is the matter?” queried her lover in a distressed tone. “Don’t you love me any longer, darling?”
“Oh no, it is not that, Dick dear,” with faltering voice; “but we have been parted so long, and I’ve hardly got accustomed to you yet, you seem so formidable to me now, remember you were hardly more than a boy when you left; and now you have grown so big and strong and manly-looking, it doesn’t seem at all the same thing to kiss you now.”
“Well, darling, if that is all, the strangeness will soon pass, but dear me! this seems a cool meeting for lovers.”
“Let us sit down, Dick, and talk things over,” replied Jeannie, taking his hand and leading him to the sofa.
But Miss Farquharson’s knock was heard at the door, and they had only time to hurriedly appoint a meeting for the following day at the lonely Granton Falls, when the elder lady entered the room.