t be very friendly, and I did not want to
hurt her feelings. So we went down to the spring at the foot of the
hill, where the secret lay of my nice, firm, sweet butter. She did not
seem very much interested, even when I showed her the tank in which the
pans of milk stood in the cool water. She soon went over to a big
granite boulder left there by the glaciers ages ago when the hill was
made by the melting ice dropping its earth and gravel, and sat down as
if to rest. So I went and sat beside her.

"Jacob," said she, with a sort of gasp, "you wonder why I kissed you up
there, don't you?"

I should not have confessed this when I was young, for it is not the
man's part I played; but I blushed, and turned my face away.

"I love you, Jacob!" she took my hand as she said this, and with her
other hand turned my face toward her. "I want you to marry me. Will you,
Jacob? I--I--I need you. I'll be good to you, Jake. Don't say no! Don't
say no, for God's sake!"

Then the tragic truth seemed to dawn on me, or rather it came like a
flash; and I turned and looked at her as I had not done before. I am
slow, or I should have known when her father and mother had spoken as
they did; but now I could see. I could see why she needed me. As an
unsophisticated boy, I had been blind in my failure to see something new
and unexpected to me in human relations; but once it came to me, it was
plain. I was a stockman, as well as a boy; and my life was closely
related to the mysterious processes by which the world is filled with
successive generations of living beings. I was like a family physician
to my animals; and wise in their days and generations. Rowena was
explained to me in a flash of lightning by my every-day experiences;
she was swept within the current of my knowledge.

"Rowena," said I, "you are in trouble."

She knew what I meant.

I hope never again to see any one in such agony. Her face flamed, and
then turned as white as a sheet. She looked at me with that distressful
expression in her eyes, rose as if to go away, and then came back and
sitting down again on the stone, she buried her head on my breast and
wept so terribly that I was afraid. I tried to dry her tears, but they
burst out afresh whenever I looked in her face. The poor thing was
ashamed to look in my eyes; but she clung to me, sobbing, and crying
out, and then drawing long quivering breaths, which seemed to be worse
than sobs. When she spoke, it was in short, broke