Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/265

Rh "I thought you were coming to-night, Mr. Will," she said, as simply as she would have said it six years before.

"Oh, Ally, how could you know!" I exclaimed.

"The same old way," she replied, smiling, but still with a certain solemnity in the smile, and touching the tourmaline which swung at her belt. "I half saw you, Mr. Will. I am all alone in the house. Mother and father have gone to the prayer-meeting. But I can be glad enough for three till they come home."

"Can you be glad enough for the fourth, Ally?" said I.

She looked at me perplexedly.

"Oh, Ally—Ally," I exclaimed in a tone which needed no syllables further to convey its meaning. She did not tremble nor flush—she gazed steadily into my eyes, as if reading my inmost soul. Her look was not one of gladness—it was of unutterable solemnity. We had reached the doorstep. The lilac trees waved above our heads, and the strong, sweet odor of the blossoms seemed to wrap us as in a fragrant cloud. Still her bright, fearless, loving, child-like, woman-full eyes gazed steadily into mine, and she did not speak. I could not.

I put in her hand the little worn bit of paper which had lain on my heart for five years. She unfolded it and read her own childish words:—

"If you were here I would kiss you, Mr. Will." A faint rosy color mounted to her temples—to