A Rose of Womanhood

unheard by her, “I could never, have dreamed anything half so lovely.”

She sat down beside him on the old bench and looked unshrinkingly in his face. There was no boldness in her glance -—nothing but the most perfect, childlike trust and confidence. If there had been any evil in his heart—any skulking thought, he was afraid to acknowledge—- those eyes must have searched it out and shamed it. But he could meet them una- fraid. Then she wrote,

“ I was very much frightened. You must have thought me very silly, but I had never seen any man except Uncle Thomas and Neil and the egg peddler. And you are different from them—oh, very, very different. I was afraid to come back here the next evening. And yet, somehow, I wanted to come. I did not want you to think I did not know how to behave. I sent Neil back for my bow in the morning. I could not do without it. I cannot speak, you know. Are you sorry? ”

9S