aight brows, your serene
forehead, that is like that of the angels in the Italian pictures father
brought home from Italy. Then I will let you go. I shall not be too
impetuous, lest I frighten you. And then some day you will say again,
"Come home soon William," and it will mean that I am to go home to you.

Yours till death,

WILLIAM.

August, '63.

My love with the dove's eyes:

Why were you so shy when I met you to-day on the gravel path? I asked
you where you were going. You would not stop; you almost ran past, like
a little gray moth. I love you in that gray little gown; your little
bare shoulders are pink beside it, like a spring flower beside a stone.
Why were you so shy? You are too young to have a lover. There is no one
except the tow-headed Bowman boy across the street. It could not have
been he. Then you went to the piano, and I heard you singing softly, "My
Love is like a Red, Red Rose." What can you know of love, my little one?
I am jealous of life itself that must bring that change to you. I would
delay that day. Not yet would I have the bud open for the hot sun to
draw out its fragrance. I would keep you yet a while in the white,
austere innocence of your youth. My little love, my child, the hour is
not yet.

WILLIAM.

September, '64.

Where I sit at my window, sweetheart, I can see the corner of the
grape-arbor in your garden. Do you remember the day we sat there, and I
read you my story, and you listened, with your great dreaming eyes on
the slippery leaf shadows, and your mouth stained with the purple
grapes? And when I had finished, you asked me, "Why did Reginald think
he had to die, William?" And I told you, "Because he loved Eleanor so
much and she loved another man." "Then why didn't he love some one else,
too? How silly they all were!" you said. You were too young to
understand. I look in the eyes of the little girl in the picture, and
she does not understand. The little girl is a year younger than you, and
the green-and-white frock in the picture was torn and darned last
summer. I remember how you looked, bent over your needle, your red lips
a little heavy with unspoken protest as you sewed the long rent. What a
child you always were to tear your frocks and get berry stains on your
white aprons and scratch your fingers and arms with briers! And how I
have loved each scratch and stain. My sweet, wild little Allison! Now
perhaps you begin to understand, to wonder and dream a little.