Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/383

 "Little Miss, that loss has put me out, but never has it been the hardship it is now—one arm!"

I had not thought it possible for her to come nearer, but a successful nestling movement was her answer.

"I feel the need of a thousand arms, and yet their strength is—"

"Is in this one." She completed my sentence with her own nestling emphasis for "this one."

"Can you believe now, Little Miss?"

"Yes—you gave it to me again."

"Can you believe that I—I—"

"That was never hard. I believed that the first evening I saw you."

"A womanish thing to say—I didn't know it myself."

But she laughed to me, laughed still as I brought her face nearer—so near. Only then did her parted lips close tensely in the woman fear of what she read in my eyes. I have reason to believe that she would have mastered this fear, but at that instant Miss Caroline coughed rather alarmingly.

"You should do something for that right away," I said, as we struck ourselves apart. "You let a cough like that run along and you don't know what it may end in." Whereupon, having kissed no one on this occasion, I now kissed Miss Caroline,—without difficulty, I may add.

"I've been meaning to do it for a year," I explained.

"I must remind you that they were far less delib-