e resolved in her heart to see
him--resolved that nothing in heaven or earth or the other place could
keep her from seeing him, and succeeded in carrying out her resolution.
The intuitive resolve, the one that does not know it is a resolution, is
the sort before which obstacles fall like corn before the sickle.

After John had waited a weary time, the form of the girl appeared above
the crest of the hill. She was holding up the skirt of her gown, and
glided over the earth so rapidly that she appeared to be running. Beat!
beat! oh, heart of John, if there is aught in womanhood to make you throb;
if there is aught in infinite grace and winsomeness; if there is aught in
perfect harmony of color and form and movement; if there is aught of
beauty, in God's power to create that can set you pulsing, beat! for the
fairest creature of His hand is hastening to greet you. The wind had
dishevelled her hair and it was blowing in fluffy curls of golden red
about her face. Her cheeks were slightly flushed with joy and exercise,
her red lips were parted, and her eyes--but I am wasting words. As for
John's heart it almost smothered him with its beating. He had never before
supposed that he could experience such violent throbbing within his breast
and live. But at last she was at the gate, in all her exquisite beauty and
winsomeness, and something must be done to make the heart conform to the
usages of good society. She, too, was in trouble with her breathing, but
John thought that her trouble was owing to exertion. However that may have
been, nothing in heaven or earth was ever so beautiful, so radiant, so
graceful, or so fair as this girl who had come to give herself to John. It
seems that I cannot take myself away from the attractive theme.

"Ah, Sir John, you did come," said the girl, joyously.

"Yes," John succeeded in replying, after an effort, "and you--I thank you,
gracious lady, for coming. I do not deserve--" the heart again asserted
itself, and Dorothy stood by the gate with downcast eyes, waiting to learn
what it was that John did not deserve. She thought he deserved everything
good.

"I fear I have caused you fatigue," said John, again thinking, and with
good reason, that he was a fool.

The English language, which he had always supposed to be his mother
tongue, had deserted him as if it were his step-mother. After all, the
difficulty, as John subsequently said, was that Dorothy's beauty had
deprived him of the power to