“The sun was sinking behind the trees as we rose to go homeward. Stiffened with sitting so long, I tripped and fell. He sprang and caught me in his great strong arms for one little moment; then—well—I trembled a bit with the start it had given me, and finding that my foot had really been hurt a little, I accepted his help as we descended the slope and climbed upon the other side to the road again. It seemed very pleasant to have his strong arm for a support. There had not been a word of love, but his unaffected, frank talk had touched me as no compliments or sentiment could ever have done.
“I had thought his voice rather harsh at first when he spoke so earnestly and vehemently, but it had grown very tender and quiet now, and as we came back from the woods to civilization again we lapsed into silence.”
As Mildred ceased, the clock struck midnight. The noise outside had died away, and the fire had burned low, too low for me to distinguish her face clearly.
“And was there no love-making at all?” I asked, much disappointed at the prosaic ending of the little romance that I had been anticipating. A talk on philosophy in a graveyard was not the kind of love-making that I knew about, and I wondered if there ever were another girl like Mildred.
“Oh, I didn’t say there was any love-making,” said Mildred rather dryly. “I simply said that I think I really was in love.”
“And is that all? Did you never see him again?” I persisted.
“Yes, several times afterward,” she answered; “for I went regularly to the school after that. At first I understood almost nothing, and much of what he said was Greek to me. I met some delightful people there, but he helped me more than any one else. He loaned me books, and we had many a talk.
“I felt that we were becoming fast friends, when suddenly he went West. I received a note from him some months afterward, telling me that his parents had died; but there was very little about himself. I heard afterward that he was engaged; but after Julia died I lost all knowledge of him. Probably he has forgotten me long ago, but I owe to that talk the best things that have come to me since I was a woman. Yes, Ruby, that first April-day and that second day in midsummer in old Concord are the two red-letter days of my life.”
CHAPTER XI.
(Extract from the New York “Tribune.”)