h for me to
see her as I do, odd whiles in our parlor, or walking up and down the
garden with you, Rose; if I were to meet her every night and morning, as
Reuben must, I should go mad."

"Aha!" said Rose, laughingly; "that's not the way lovers talk,--at
least, not in books. I think you are safe, Phil. And yet" (with a
soberer air) "I did think, Phil, one while, that you thought very, very
often, and a great deal, of Adele; and I was not sorry."

"Did you, Rose?" said Phil, eagerly; "did you truly? Then I'll tell you
a secret, Rose,--mind, Rose, a great secret, never to be lisped,--not to
mother even. I did love Adele as far back as I can remember. You know
the strange little French hat she used to wear? Well, I used to draw it
on my slate at school, Rose; it was all I could draw that belonged to
her. Many's the time, when, if a boy came near, I would dash in some
little flourishes about it, and call it a basket or a coal-scoop; but
all the while, for me, her little dark eyes were shining under it. But
there was Reuben,--I told him I thought Suke Boody the prettiest girl in
Ashfield, but it wasn't true,--and he beat me in reading and writing,
and everything, I think, but fisticuffs."

"Did he?" said Rose, with the prettily arched brow which mostly
accompanied only her mischievous sallies; and it seemed to Phil
afterward that she would have resented the statement, if he had made it
concerning any other young fellow in Ashfield.

"Yes, indeed," continued he. "I knew he must beat me out and out with
Adele. Do you remember, Rose, how you told me once that he had sent a
gift of furs to her? Well, Rose, I had my own little gift hidden away
for her for that same New-Year's day, and I burned it. Those furs kept
me awake an awful time. And when I went away, Rose, I prayed that I
might learn to forget her; but there was never a letter of yours that
came with her name in it, (and most of them had it, you know,) but I saw
her as plainly as ever, with her arm laced in yours, as I used to see
you many a time from my window, strolling down the garden. And now that
I have come back, Rose, it's the same confounded thing. By Jove, I feel
as if I could pitch into Reuben, as I used to do at school. But then
he's a good fellow, and a good friend of mine, I'm sure."

"I'm sure he is," said Rose. "But, Phil," continued she, meditatively,
"it seems to me, if I were a man, and loved a woman as you love Adele, I
should find some way of letti