girlish lips. Lucina had heard of his good deeds from her father, how
kind he was to the poor and sick, how hard he had worked, how
faithful he had been to his mother and sister. Jerome listened with
bliss, and shame that he should find it bliss. Then Lucina and he
remembered together, with that perfect time of memory which is as
harmonious as any duet, all the episodes of their childhood.

"I remember how you gave me sassafras," said Lucina, "and how you
would not take the nice gingerbread that Hannah made, and how sad I
felt about it."

"I will get some more sassafras for you to-morrow," said Jerome.

"And I will give you some more gingerbread if you will take it," said
she, with a sweet coquettishness.

"I will, if you want me to," said Jerome.

They were out in the front yard then, a gust of wind pressed under
the trees, and seemed to blow them together. Lucina's white muslin
fluttered around Jerome's knees, her curls floated across his breast.

"Oh," murmured Lucina, confusedly, "this wind has come all of a
sudden," and she stood apart from him.

"You will take cold; we had better go in," said Jerome. They went
into the house, Jerome being a little hurt that Lucina had shrunk
away from him so quickly, and Lucina disappointed that Jerome was so
solicitous lest she take cold. Then they sat down again in the
corner, and remembered that Jerome ate two pieces of cake at Miss
Camilla's tea-party and she two and a half.

Somehow, before the party broke up that night, it was understood that
Jerome was to come and see her the next Sunday night. And yet Lucina
had not invited him, nor he asked permission to come.

Chapter XXIV

Jerome's mind, during the two days after the party, was in a sort of
dazzle of efflorescence, and could not precipitate any clear ideas
for his own understanding. Love had been so outside his calculation
of life, that his imagination, even, had scarcely grasped the
possibility of it.

He worked on stolidly, having all the time before his mental vision,
like one with closed eyes in a bright room, a shifting splendor as of
strange scenes and clouds.

He could not sleep nor eat, his spirit seemed to inhabit his flesh so
thoroughly as to do away with the material needs of it. Still, all
things that appealed to his senses seemed enhanced in power, becoming
so loud and so magnified that they produced a confusion of hearing
and vision. The calls of the spring birds sounded as if in h