r wonderful gifts through strangers: it has hurt me
cruelly."

"Oh, Ross, don't say so! Hurt you! I hurt you, my love, my love! I had
hoped no pang of the lightest sort would ever reach you through me, and
now I've grieved you sorely! It's all due to my morbid fancies, dear. I
could not ask to sing to you lest you should not like my singing: I think
I should have gone mad if you had not liked my voice, Ross I have so hoped
it would be pleasant to your ear! Do you like it, Ross? Is my voice sweet
to you?" and she held his face between her hands and looked eagerly and
steadfastly into his eyes.

"The sweetest thing I ever heard. It thrills my blood yet, that love-song
you sang."

She gave a little cooing laugh: "That is _your_ love-song, dear--your very
own." Then she said, gravely, "I must tell you _all_ about myself now,
Ross, so you shall never be able to reproach me with having given you
pain. No matter, dear: it was, true," she said in answer to his caressing
protest, "and I feel the hurt through you. I am your wife. The reason
those gentlemen are so fond of me is because--Wait;" and she slid from his
embrace and brought a pile of books: "this and this are mine; these two I
translated from the German, others from the old Provencal tongue, with
which my father made me familiar." Then she told him how lovingly she did
this work, how kind scholarly men had been to her, and how eagerly they
had sought to know her otherwise than by letter--"Until, to-night, I bade
them find Ross Norval's wife, and know the little girl who, shielded by
his name, feared nothing any more."

"Percy," he said, quite humbly, "you must bear with me, dear. I lose all
hope of winning you when I learn these things of you."

"But you are not sorry, Ross? I will not write any more if you dislike
literary women."

But he stopped her: "Dislike it! I am proud as a king of all your
endowments. But, sweetheart, you said a word just now that is worth all
else that you have told me--a word, I know, you said only half meaning it.
Oh, my little girl, will there ever come a time when, meaning it and out
of a full heart, you will say, My love! my love!"

She held him tight a long, long moment, then with one lingering love-kiss
on his lips--her very first--she said faintly, putting him away from her,
"Ross, not now--wait, my dearest. Sheldon gave me this to give to you
to-night;" and she held out a little worn letter, then buried her face
upon his breast