he moon came over the hill, and
with his arm in mine we turned our steps homeward, and Clara met us
half-way, and putting her hand fondly in Louis' said:

"My boy is out under the moon. I feared he was lost."

"My little mother!" and he gathered her under his wing, as it seemed,
and we were soon at the gate of home. Louis and his mother passed in at
the side door. As they did so, I fell back a step or two, turned my
steps toward the old apple tree, and there, sitting against its old
trunk, I talked aloud and cried and said:

"Have I done wrong, or is it right?"

Oh! what strange thoughts came over me as I sat growing more and more
convinced that Louis' talk to me was a boyish rhapsody, and yet I knew
then, as I had before known, that my own heart was touched by his
presence. If he had been older, I should have felt that heaven had
opened; as it was, I longed to be full of hope and to dream of days to
be, and still I feared and I said aloud, "I am afraid, oh, I am afraid!"
and at that moment Louis stood before me, and in quiet tones spoke as
one having authority:

"Emily, you will get cold, you should not sit here."

And as I rose the moonbeams fell on my tear-stained face, and he said as
if I were the merest child:

"Why do you fear I shall ever be different toward you; but you need not
feel bound even though you have said you will love me."

"Louis," I cried, "you are cruel; you trouble me; I can't tell how I
feel at all," and then realizing his last sentence I took off the ring,
but ere I could speak he put it back, saying:

"No, no, Emily. I will wait one year, and then if you are afraid I will
go away; but keep the ring, for that is yours, and yours alone."

I went up to my little room without bidding any one "good-night," and
thought those old three words right over, "Emily did it." I had covered
myself up because I dared not be known, and if, after all, it was right,
how good it would be to be loved by one capable of such wondrous love as
he possessed.

I dreamed all night that I was alone and ill, and in the morning I
dreaded to meet Louis, but he gave no sign of any troubled thought, and
when the stage came was ready with his bright "good-bye." He folded his
little mother to his heart and held her there for a few seconds. When he
came to me his hand's grasp was firm and strong. His kiss and whisper
came together, "I will write." A moment later and he had gone. Clara
went to her own room, to cry a li