"Do you!" cried Roseleaf, grasping her hand again in his joy. "You are kindness itself to say so. I must appear very stupid" (here he half put his arm around her again, checking himself with difficulty from [completeing] the movement) "and dull, and wanting in manners, but you are the only young lady I have ever known on terms of the least intimacy."
Miss Fern replied that she did not mind what had occurred, and hoped he would forget it. She added that she would do anything she could for him, and had the most earnest wish that they should be friends.
At the gate they paused, and in some way their eyes were looking into each other. The girl laughed, a relief to feelings that had been for the past ten minutes somewhat overcharged.
"Well, you have made a beginning," she said, mischievously, for she wanted to drive the sober expression from his clouded face.
"A beginning?" he echoed.
"Yes," she said. "You have held my hand."
He crimsoned.
"You said you would forgive me," he murmured.
"With all my heart," she responded, putting the hand in his again.
He felt a thrill go through him, but it was a pleasant sensation.