heart, hot flushes in her cheeks, dim
mists before her eyes when she had thought about young Vanderlyn, of
which she was suspicious--very. No; she was by no means sure that she
knew nothing about love--but she did not say this to her father.
Instead she pressed her dark head closer to his thick white mane.

"Love!" said she. "It is such a pretty word. Tell me something of it,
father."

He smiled down at her. "Ah, you have some interest! Well, I tell you."
Into his old eyes there came the deep and happy glow of reminiscence
of bright days. She knew the look--always was it in them when he was
thinking of her mother and never was it in them at any other time.

"Love," said he, "it is life's spring-time. Ah, your mother, Anna!
Your dear mother! It is the splendor and the glory of the dawn." The
old man's head was back, his eyes were closed and on his face there
was a singularly sweet and simple smile, more like that of a youth
than that of one whose years stretch far behind him. "It is the light
that falls from heaven and turns this grim old world into a paradise.
It is the hand of fate that grips the heart till we must
follow--follow. We cannot hold back, my Anna; I could not hold back,
your lovely mother, she could not hold back. Ah, one must follow when
Love's hand is clasped about one's heart and leads! Some day you will
understand and many things will then be clear to you. It is the glow
of ardor in the eyes, reflected from the flame which burns deep in the
heart--the flame which melts, which welds a link, a mystic bond, to
bind for all eternity." He opened his eyes, now, and smiled at her.
"That, liebschen--that is love--ah, that is love. Your mother taught
me all about it. Be careful--careful, Anna--about love!"

"It sounds so splendid as you speak of it! How shall I know when it
has come to me?"

The old man's caution was all gone; his fears now all forgotten. He
was thinking of past days, dear days, young days.

"How shall you know?" he asked, and smiled again, this time in soft,
affectionate derision. "You will not mistake. Mistake? It is
impossible. When your heart leaps at the sound of his dear footsteps;
when the world is empty till he comes and then is, ah, so full that
you are crowded out of it into the valleys of a paradise; when little
chills run over you one moment and the next the hot blood makes your
cheeks into twin roses! How shall you know? Ah, there are many signs!"

"And do you think that s