valid increase of my existence! I shall feel myself
to be a force nevermore divisible!

Her hair will be curly and of the soft brown of an old walnut, and,
like the shell of a walnut, her twisted braids will surround the back
of her head--and her eyes gray as a German lake in May, when clouds
hover over it and the wind chases bright electric sparks over the
waves ... her hair may also be black, and her eyes brown like snuff; but
her heart must be strong, so that a man may succumb to it!

My eyes watched the bamboo alley and saw the littlest leaves and the
tiniest twigs gently quiver in the heat. Nothing else. She did not
come.

I peered into the park through the opening in the bushes: in the purest
brightness the fountain waved its spray over the tops of the shrubs and
palms up into the blue, vibrating air. And the old gardener continued
his plucking of tea leaves, rising a little and bending again at every
short step, almost unreal in this noiseless, torrid realm. I turned my
eyes back to the bamboo. I was aglow with heat, perhaps also with
expectation; my heart throbbed convulsively and irregularly--and
reminded me of a telegraphic key in an empty, sun-heated railway
station, which, left to itself, ticks incessantly.

For a long while I sat occupied with my thoughts and staring at the
same spot. Suddenly I had a feeling as though there were a shaking of
twigs in the upper part of my particular bamboo. I looked sharply;
there was another gentle agitation, a quiver of the stems and leaves,
as though some one had struck against the trunk below;--only at this
one spot. Then all was calm again.

I grew impatient. She is not coming! Mayhap she will come as soon as I
am gone, and when I return I shall find an answer. I stood up,
stretched myself, and walked slowly toward the bamboo alley.

In passing, I glanced once more at the place of the inscription, and
looked fixedly at it, and examined it still more closely, and breathed
audibly, and my heart thumped. Beneath my words,

Whether there or here,
Be with me, dear!

there were now written in dainty characters the words,

I am.

The green avenue was empty. Nobody had passed through here; I had
seen nobody stop at this spot. And yet she was here, and had written
her answer! In sudden embarrassment I took a step backward, and
involuntarily asked, "You are here? Here with me?" My voice
was so