"Marjie,"—I took her hand in mine—"since you were a little girl I have known you. Of all the girls here I have known you longest. In the two years I was East I met many young ladies, both in school and at Rockport. There were some charming young folks. One of them, Rachel Melrose, was very pretty and very wealthy. Her mother made considerable fuss over me, and I believe the daughter liked me a little; for she—but never mind; maybe it was all my vanity. But, Marjie, there has never been but one girl for me in all this world; there will never be but one. If Jean Pahusca had carried you off—Oh, God in Heaven! Marjie, I wonder how my father lived through the days after my mother lost her life. Men do, I know."
I was toying with her hand. It was soft and beautifully formed, although she knew the work of our Springvale households.
"Marjie," my voice was full of tenderness, "you are dear to me as my mother was to my father. I loved you as my little playmate; I was fond of you as my girl when I was first beginning to care for a girl as boys will; as my sweetheart, when the liking grew to something more. And now all the love a man can give, I give to you."
I rose up before her. They call me vigorous and well built to-day. I was in my young manhood's prime then. I looked down at her, young and dainty, with the sweet grace of womanhood adorning her like a garment. She stood up beside me and lifted her fair face to mine. There was a bloom on her cheeks and her brown eyes were full of peace. I opened my arms to her and she nestled in them and rested her cheek against my shoulder.
"Marjie," I said gently, "will you kiss me and tell me that you love me?"
Her arms were about my neck a moment. Sometimes I can feel them there now. All shy and sweet she lifted her lips to mine.
"I do love you, Phil," she murmured, and then of her own will, just once, she kissed me.
"It is vouchsafed sometimes to know a bit of heaven here on earth," Le Claire had said to me when he talked of O'mie's father.
It came to me that day; the cool, green valley by the river, the vine-covered old stone cabin, the sunlit draw opening to a limitless world of summer peace and beauty, and Marjie with me, while both of us were young and we loved each other.
The lengthening shadows warned me at last.