nd our boy? Oh yes, dear, I love you.
Yes, yes, yes! The happiness that comes every day can't be expressed:
we live on it, so we don't think of it. Like our daily bread--who
thinks of that? But when you are thinking of yourself, when you put
your head down, and really think, then you say, 'I am ungrateful, for
I am happy, and I give no thanks for it.' Or when we are alone
together, and walking arm-in-arm, now, at this very moment,--not that
I mean only this moment,--I love you, I love you." She put her head
down on my arm and pressed it earnestly. "Oh," she said, "if I were to
lose you!" She spoke very low, as if afraid. What had frightened her?
The darkness and the forest, or her own words?

She went on:--"I have often and often dreamed that I was saying
good-by to you. You both cried, and I pressed you so close to my heart
that there was only one of us. It was a nightmare, you know, but I
don't mind it, for it showed me that my life was in your lives, dear.
What is that cracking noise? Didn't you see something just in front of
us?"

I answered her by taking her in my arms and folding her to my heart.
We walked on, but it was impossible to go on talking. Every now and
then she would stop and say, "Hush! hark! No, it is nothing."

At last we saw ahead of us a little light, now visible, now hidden by
a tree. It was the lamp set for us in our parlor window. We crossed
the stile and were at home. It was high time, for we were wet through.

I brought a huge log, and when the fire had blazed up we sat down in
the great chimney-place. The poor girl was shivering. I took off her
boots and held her feet to the fire, screening them with my hands.

"Thanks, dear George, thanks!" she said, leaning on my shoulder and
looking at me so tenderly that I felt almost ready to cry.

"What were you saying to me in that horrid wood, my darling?" I asked
her, when she was better.

"You are thinking about that? I was frightened, that is all, and when
you are frightened you see ghosts."

"We shall be wood-cutters, shan't we?"

And kissing me, with a laugh, she replied: "It is bedtime, Jean of the
Woods."

I well remember that walk, for it was our last. Often and often since,
at sunset on a dark day, I have been over the same ground; often and
often I have stopped where she stood, and stooped and pulled aside the
fern, seeking to find, poor fool that I am! the traces of her vanished
footsteps. And I have often halted in the clearing