I had ventured--with
incredible daring--to send Nancy an elaborate, rosy Valentine; written on
the back of it in a handwriting all too thinly disguised was the
following verse, the triumphant result of much hard thinking in school
hours:--

Should you of this the sender guess
Without another sign,
Would you repent, and rest content
To be his Valentine

I grew hot and cold by turns when I thought of its possible effects on my
chances.

One of those useless, slushy afternoons, I took Tom for a walk that led
us, as dusk came on, past Nancy's house. Only by painful degrees did I
succeed in overcoming my bashfulness; but Tom, when at last I had blurted
out the secret, was most sympathetic, although the ailment from which I
suffered was as yet outside of the realm of his experience. I have used
the word "ailment" advisedly, since he evidently put my trouble in the
same category with diphtheria or scarlet fever, remarking that it was
"darned hard luck." In vain I sought to explain that I did not regard it
as such in the least; there was suffering, I admitted, but a degree of
bliss none could comprehend who had not felt it. He refused to be
envious, or at least to betray envy; yet he was curious, asking many
questions, and I had reason to think before we parted that his admiration
for me was increased. Was it possible that he, too, didn't love Nancy?
No, it was funny, but he didn't. He failed to see much in girls: his tone
remained commiserating, yet he began to take an interest in the progress
of my suit.

For a time I had no progress to report. Out of consideration for those
members of our weekly dancing class whose parents were Episcopalians the
meetings were discontinued during Lent, and to call would have demanded a
courage not in me; I should have become an object of ridicule among my
friends and I would have died rather than face Nancy's mother and the
members of her household. I set about making ingenious plans with a view
to encounters that might appear casual. Nancy's school was dismissed at
two, so was mine. By walking fast I could reach Salisbury Street, near
St. Mary's Seminary for Young Ladies, in time to catch her, but even then
for many days I was doomed to disappointment. She was either in company
with other girls, or else she had taken another route; this I surmised
led past Sophy McAlery's house, and I enlisted Tom as a confederate. He
was to make straight for th