As I turned and fixed my eyes full upon her, I caught Agnes examining me with eager curiosity. Detected in her scrutiny she blushed to the very forehead, and dropped her eyes suddenly to the ground. I was equally abashed. I had approached her intending to address her with my old familiarity, but this aversion of her look somehow unaccountably disheartened me. I hesitated whether I should offer her my hand. The embarrassment was becoming oppressive, when, with a desperate effort, I extended my hand, and said—
“Miss Agnes—” but for the life of me I could not proceed. It was, however, sufficient to induce her to look up, and our eyes met. At the same instant she took my proffered hand. What happened afterward I could never remember, only I recollect the blood rushed in torrents to my cheeks, and I fancied that the tiny white hand I held in my own, trembled a little, a very little, but still trembled. When I woke from the delirium of indescribable emotions that ensued, I found myself sitting with my guardian and Agnes in the parlor, but whether I walked there on my head or my feet I cannot to this day remember.
The month which followed was among the happiest of my life, for it was spent at the side of Agnes. We walked, rode, chatted, and sang together; not a morning or an evening found us apart; and insensibly her presence became to me almost as necessary as the air I breathed. Yet—I know not how it was—Agnes was a mystery to me. At first, indeed, we were almost on the same footing as if we had been brother and sister, but after I had been at my guardian’s about a month, she began to grow reserved, although at times she would display all her old frankness, united with even more than her usual gaiety. Often too, when I looked up at her suddenly, I would find her gazing into my face, and when thus detected, she would blush and cast her eyes down, and seem so embarrassed that I scarcely knew what to think, unless it was that Agnes—but no!—how could she be in love with one almost a stranger?
For myself, I would have given the world, if I could only have penetrated the secrets of her heart, and learned there whether the affection toward her, which I had felt had stolen almost insensibly across me, had been returned. Yes! I would have given an emperor’s ransom to discover what my timidity would not allow me to enquire. It is an old story, and has been told by hundreds before—this tale of a young lover—but I cannot refrain from rehearsing it again. I was sadly perplexed. Not a day passed but what I rose to the height of hope, or fell to the depth of despair. A smile from Agnes was the sunlight of my existence, and her reserve plunged me in unfathomable darkness. I could not penetrate the fickleness of her manner, especially when any of her young female friends were visiting her. If I spoke to them with any show of interest, she would either be unnaturally gay or singularly silent, and when I came to address her, I would be received with chilling coldness. Yet, at other times, my despair would be relieved by a return of her old frankness, and a hundred times have I been on the point of telling her the whole story of my love, but either my fears, or her returning reserve, prevented my purpose from being executed.
One day, after I had been at my guardian’s for nearly three months, Agnes and I set out together for a walk through the forest. It was a beautiful morning, and the birds were carolling gaily from every bough, while the balmy wind sighed sweetly among the fresh forest leaves, making together a harmony such as nothing but nature herself, on a morning so lovely, can produce. Our hearts were in unison with the scenery around, and Agnes was in one of her old frank moods. We wandered on accordingly, over stream and through glade and down dell, admiring the glorious scenery on every hand, and now and then stopping to gather a wild flower, to listen to the birds, or to rest upon some mossy bank, until the day had far advanced, and recurring, for the first time to my watch, I found that we had been several hours on our stroll, and that it was already high noon. We were not so far, however, from home but what we might reach it in an hour.
“Had we not better return, Agnes?” said I, “it is growing late.”
“Oh! yes,” she replied, “in a moment. Wait till I have finished this wreath,” and she continued weaving together the wild flowers she had gathered for a chaplet for her hair. How nimbly her taper fingers moved, and how lovely she looked, as seated on the grassy knoll, with her hat cast off beside her, and her beautiful face flushed with health and pleasure, she pursued her task.
She was still busy in her fanciful labor, when a cloud suddenly obscured the sun, and we both looked up in some surprise, for the morning had been unusually fair, and not a vapor hitherto had dimmed the sky. A light fleecy film like a fine gauze veil, was floating across the sun’s disc.
“There is a storm brewing in the hills,” said I.
“Let us return at once,” said Agnes, “for my chaplet is finished at last, and it would be so dreadful to be caught in a shower.”