"I know you better than you know yourself, but I am to you a puzzle, and oh, if I could skip the years that lie between to-day and the day when you and I shall really understand each other! Perfect in peace that day I know will come, but there are clouds between. My father willed that I should have this education I am getting. I need it, I suppose, but I have greater needs, and cannot tell you about them till I am free."
"Two years—twenty-four months;" and his eyes fell, as he added despairingly, "What a long time to wait." Then turning to me, "But you will love me, you have said so?"
I looked my thoughts, and he answered them.
"Do not ever think so of me, I am only too sane, I have found my life before the time."
"Oh! Louis," I cried, and then he answered with the words,
"My little mother knows it—she knows I love you. She knows my inmost soul, and answers me with her pure eyes. But ah! her eyes have not the light of yours; I want you to myself, to help me, and I will love you all my life."
I was amazed, and wondered why it was—this strange boy had been much in society, and why should I, an unsophisticated, homely girl, bring such a shower of feeling on myself.
"Could it be real and would it last?"
He comprehended my thought again and replied:
"You are not homely; I see your soul in your eyes; you are younger than I am; I have never seen your equal, and I know years will tell you I am only true to my heart, and we will work together—ah! we will work for something good, we will not be all for ourselves, ma belle," and on my forehead he left a kiss that burned with the great thoughts of his heart.