For answer she kissed me, both arms around my neck, as she said, "Oh, I am so happy."
She was silent, her hands in mine. They burned me, yet to turn them loose, to tell her truthfully, and she keyed so to the sensitiveness and unthinking romance—I thought of the pool and Ophelia.... She laughed happily: "Tell me, Jack, your Elsie, when did you find that you loved me so? Was it because of my thoughts of you in the horror and folly of my flirtation with Braxton Bragg?"
"Never mind," I said; "you are never to mention that name to me."
"Oh, Jack," she hid her face on my bosom.
"You are not to speak of anything disagreeable. Only we'll just love each other, Elsie."
"Oh, please, please, just let me tell you a little, so that you will always understand me—your silly Heart's-Ease. It was this way, Jack: suppose now, suppose you were placed this way—that you were very lonely—always had lived in a cabin, and so much you wished to see the world—that in you was a strange, queer longing, a feeling that you had been born for higher things—and—all at once right out of the sky—that which you longed for came—the star of your soul."
She hid her head on my arm. She was weeping.
"Go on, child," I said; "I am listening.
"And he—he would not tell you he was your prince; then you felt that strange feeling again, only worse—to go away—to leave yourself—well, then another comes—I do not know, only he did—I had only seen him twice, and each time he was very kind, but so fulsome and so bold, that well—I would not meet him again and so he wrote...."
She was silent for a moment and then she spoke suddenly. "Oh, I fear I did wrong to see the other—to answer his note. I was so unhappy then—so wretched then, for I did not know that—that—you loved me—then!"