My little sweetheart had been right. Her mother understood.
Later I sought her, and found her alone in the gloaming--the lover's hour.
"And what does mither say?" she asked.
Briefly I told her. She laughed happily:--
"I kent it wad be a' richt."
As she stood before me--her face upturned, her eyes eager, I slipped an arm about her, and would have drawn her to me, but she drew back.
"Dinna spoil it," she said--"maybe the morn"--and she smiled. "I want to keep the wonder o' your first kiss till then: it's a kind o' sacrament."
She laid her hands upon my shoulders, and her words tumbled over each other.
"Love is magical. Since you kissed me I have wakened frae sleep: every meenute has had rose-tipped wings: the silence sings for me, and the moor wind plays a melody on the harp o' my hert. Can ye no' hear it?"
I would have answered as a lover should, but she continued: "No, no! Ye canna hear it. I'm sure there maun hae been a woman wi' the shepherds on the plains o' Palestine the nicht they heard the angels sing. Nae man ever heard the angels sing till a woman telled him they were singing. Men are deaf craturs."