As for Garth, he felt a little moved and excited, stirred by her earnestness, yet not wholly comprehending it, and quite out of his element.
CHAPTER II.
"DO YOU LIKE ME AS WELL AS YOU DID THEN?"
"The true one of youth's love, proving a faithful helpmate in those years when the dream of life is over, and we live in its realities."—Southey.
Garth pondered somewhat heavily over Queenie's words that evening. In spite of his warm human sympathies his imagination was still undeveloped. Under the margin of those brief sentences lay unexplored meanings, whole worlds of thought and fancy that he only dimly comprehended, and yet he felt himself stirred by the girl's enthusiasm.
"You have done me good," he said to her, when tea was over and Emmie had betaken herself to Patience. He had risen to take leave, but he still lingered, as though loath to break the tranquillity of the scene. "Something had worried me and put me into a bad humor with myself and all the world, but now I feel better."
"I am glad I have done you good," she returned simply.
When he had left her she knelt down by the hearth again and shielded her face from the flame. All sorts of bright, visionary pictures danced under the light of the spluttering fir-knots; thoughts almost too great and beautiful to be grasped brushed past her like wings.
Queenie was only dreaming, as girls will sometimes, only somehow her dreams were better than other women's realities. She was thinking of Garth, marvelling a little over his manner that evening. He had been kinder, gentler, and yet somehow different.
She was not quite so sure, after all, that he meant to marry Dora. She had mentioned her name once, and he had answered her in a constrained manner, and had then changed the subject. Could Miss Cunningham have given him cause for displeasure?