:

"I will be calm. He must not know how dearly he is loved."

And then the door opens. He is before her. A host of recollections,
sweet and bitter, rise with his presence; and, forgetful of her
determination to be calm and dignified as well for his sake as her own,
she lets the woman triumph, and, with a little cry, sad from the longing
and despair of it, she runs forward and throws herself, with a sob, into
his expectant arms.

At first they do not speak. He does not even kiss her, only holds her
closely in his embrace, as one holds some precious thing, some priceless
possession that, once lost, has been regained.

Then they do kiss each other, gravely, tenderly, with a gentle lingering.

"It is indeed you," she says, at last, regarding him wistfully with a
certain pride of possession, he looks so tall, and strong, and handsome
in her eyes. She examines him critically, and yet finds nothing
wanting. He is to her perfection, as, indeed (unhappily), a man always
is to the woman who loves him. Could she at this moment concentrate her
thoughts, I think she would apply to him all the charms contained in
the following lines:

"A mouth for mastery and manful work;
A certain brooding sweetness in the eyes;
A brow the harbor of fair thought, and hair
Saxon in hue."

"You are just the same as ever," she says, presently, "only taller, I
really think, and broader and bigger altogether." Then, in a little
soft whisper, "My dear,--my darling."

"And you," he says, taking the sweet face he has so hungered for
between his hands, the better to mark each change time may have
wrought, "you have grown thinner. You are paler. Darling,"--a heavy
shadow falling across his face,--"you are well,--quite well?"

"Perfectly," she answers, lightly, pleased at his uneasiness. "Town
life--the city air--has whitened me; that is all."

"But these hollows?" Touching gently her soft cheeks with a
dissatisfied air. They are a little sunk. She is altogether thinner,
frailer than of yore. Her very fingers as they lie in his look
slenderer, more fragile.

"Perhaps a little fretting has done it," she answers, with a smile and
a half-suppressed sigh.

He echoes the sigh; and it may be a few tears for all the long hours
spent apart gather in their eyes, "in thinking of the days that are no
more."

Presently, when they are calmer, more forgetful of their separation,
they seat themselves upon a sofa and fall into a happy silenc