ow
was lifted from us that for a little while our eyes could not see the
light; and, unbelieving, we asked, "Is this the truth?"

* * *

I did not tell little Ruth the story of the woods; but there were
whispered words and looks aside, and she was clever enough to
understand them. Before the day was out I think she knew; but she would
not speak of it, nor would I. For why should we call false sorrow upon
that bright hour? Was not the world before us, the awakening glory of
Ken's Island at our feet? Just as in the dark days all Nature had
withered and bent before the death-giving vapours, so now did Nature
answer the sun's appeal; and every freshet bubbling over, every wood
alive with the music of the birds, the meadows green and golden, the
hills all capped with their summer glory, she proclaimed the reign of
Nature's God. No sight more splendid ever greeted the eyes of
shipwrecked men or welcomed them to a generous shore. Hand-in-hand with
little Ruth I passed from thicket to thicket of the woods, and seemed
to stand in Paradise itself! And she--ah, who shall read a woman's
thoughts at such an hour as that! Let me be content to see her as she
was; her face grown girlish in that great release, her eyes sparkling
in a new joy of being, her step so light that no blade of grass could
have been bruised thereby. Let me hear her voice again while she lifts
her face to mine and asks me that question which even now I hear
sometimes:

"Jasper, Jasper! is it real? How can I believe it, Jasper? Shall we see
our home again--you and I? Oh, tell me that it is true, Jasper--say it
often, often, or I shall forget!"

We were in a high place of the woods just then, and we stood to look
down upon the lower valley where the rocks showed their rare green
mosses, and every crag lifted strange flowers to the sun, and little
rivulets ran down with bubbling sounds. Away on the open veldt the
doll-like houses were to be seen, and the ashes of her bungalow. And
there, I say, all the scene enchanting me, and the memory of the bygone
days blotted from my mind, and no future to be thought of but that
which should give me forever the right to befriend this little figure
of my dreams, I said:

"It is true, little Ruth--God knows how true--that a man loves you with
all his heart, and he has loved you all through these weary months.
Just a simple fellow he is, with no fine ways and small knowledge of
the world; but he waits for you to tell him th