She arose at once, and, gathering all the articles of her work into a
basket, walked away.

"Don't let me hunt you away, Miss Herbert," said I, indolently;
"anywhere else will suit me just as well. Pray don't go." But without
vouchsafing to utter a word, or even turn her head, she continued her
way towards the house.

"The morning she slapped my face," says Hans, "filled the measure of my
bliss, for I then saw she could not control her feelings for me."
This passage recurred to me as I lay there, and I hugged myself in the
thought that such a moment of delight might yet be mine. The profound
German explains this sentiment well. "With women," says he, "love is
like the idol worship of an Indian tribe; at the moment their hearts are
bursting with devotion, they like to cut and wound and maltreat their
god. With _them_, this is the ecstasy of their passion."

I now saw that the girl was in love with me, and that she did not
know it herself. I take it that the sensations of a man who suddenly
discovers that the pretty girl he has been admiring is captivated by his
attentions, are very like what a head clerk may feel at being sent for
by the house, and informed that he is now one of the firm! This may seem
a commercial formula to employ, but it will serve to show my meaning;
and as I lay there on that velvet turf, what a delicious vision spread
itself around me! At one moment we were rich, travelling in splendor
through Europe, amassing art-treasures wherever we went and despoiling
all the great galleries of their richest gems. I was the associate of
all that was distinguished in literature and science, and my wife the
chosen friend of queens and princesses. How unaffected we were, how
unspoiled by fortune! Approachable by all, our graceful benevolence
seemed to elevate its object and make of the recipient the benefactor.
What a world of bliss this vile dross men call gold can scatter!
"There--there, good people," said I, blandly, waving my hand, "no
illuminations, no bonfires; your happy faces are the brightest of all
welcomes." Then we were suddenly poor,--out of caprice, just to see how
we should like it,--and living in a little cottage under Snowden, and I
was writing, Heaven knows what, for the periodicals, and my wife rocking
a little urchin in a cradle, whom we constantly awoke by kissing, each
pretending that it was all the other's fault, till we ratified a peace
in the same fashion. Then I remembered the night, n