I have now only the recollection of Miss Stratford’s kneeling by my side, with a supporting arm around me, and of her thus unrolling and reading the proof-paper I had in my hand. We were in the hall now, instead of on the stoop, and there was a long silence. Then she put her head on my shoulder and wept. I could hear and feel her sobs as if they were my own.
“I—I didn’t think you’d cry—that you’d be so sorry,” I heard myself saying, at last, in despondent self-defence.
Miss Stratford lifted her head and, still kneeling as she was, put a finger under my chin to make me look her in her face. Lo! the eyes were laughing through their tears; the whole countenance was radiant once more with the light of happy youth and with that other glory which youth knows only once.
“Why, Andrew, boy,” she said, trembling, smiling, sobbing, beaming all at once, “didn’t you know that people cry for very joy sometimes?”
And as I shook my head she bent down and kissed me.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
[Since any list approaching a complete bibliography would be unduly long, these suggestions are merely for the convenience of those who, without special research, wish to read further and compare. They remain after rejection of many essays that seem hardly to advance the discussion.]
Cairns, William B., On the Development of American Literature from 1815 to 1833, with especial reference to periodicals; Bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, Philology and Literature Series, volume i, no. 1, pages 1–87.
Canby, Henry Seidel, The Short Story; Yale Studies in English, xii (revised as introduction to The Book of the Short Story, edited by Alexander Jessup and Henry Seidel Canby).
Chassang, A., Histoire du Roman ... dans l’Antiquité Grecque et Latine; Paris (2d ed.), 1862.