I could only feel that I was in the presence of a wonderful power, and at that moment he seemed a divinity. The moon came over the hill, and with his arm in mine we turned our steps homeward, and Clara met us half-way, and putting her hand fondly in Louis' said:
"My boy is out under the moon. I feared he was lost."
"My little mother!" and he gathered her under his wing, as it seemed, and we were soon at the gate of home. Louis and his mother passed in at the side door. As they did so, I fell back a step or two, turned my steps toward the old apple tree, and there, sitting against its old trunk, I talked aloud and cried and said:
"Have I done wrong, or is it right?"
Oh! what strange thoughts came over me as I sat growing more and more convinced that Louis' talk to me was a boyish rhapsody, and yet I knew then, as I had before known, that my own heart was touched by his presence. If he had been older, I should have felt that heaven had opened; as it was, I longed to be full of hope and to dream of days to be, and still I feared and I said aloud, "I am afraid, oh, I am afraid!" and at that moment Louis stood before me, and in quiet tones spoke as one having authority:
"Emily, you will get cold, you should not sit here."
And as I rose the moonbeams fell on my tear-stained face, and he said as if I were the merest child:
"Why do you fear I shall ever be different toward you; but you need not feel bound even though you have said you will love me."
"Louis," I cried, "you are cruel; you trouble me; I can't tell how I feel at all," and then realizing his last sentence I took off the ring, but ere I could speak he put it back, saying:
"No, no, Emily. I will wait one year, and then if you are afraid I will go away; but keep the ring, for that is yours, and yours alone."