my dear mother, the girls, Alice,
and Lucretia. Then they left us alone in the little circle about the
sun-dial, only it was summer, and the bees were heavy with the flower
dust, the air was fragrant. And then at last I saw the consciousness
of womanhood in your eyes--those clear eyes that have always looked
so straight at mine, straight into my heart, it seemed, although I
knew they were too young to see. Not once except for that first moment
when you said, with lowered lids, "Welcome home, William," did you look
at me. And as we sat on the garden seat, I could see your color rise,
the lace scarf tremble with your quickened breath. And then I took your
hand. "I have come home to you, Allison," I said. "What have you to say
to me?" But you would not raise your eyes. I took both of your hands
then. "Look at me, Allison," I said, and something ran through you like
the wind through a rose shaking out its perfume, and I seemed to draw
into my very soul the fragrance of your young emotion; and I said again,
"Look at me, Allison." And then, half like a child commanded, you raised
your eyes.... There is a majestic purity about you, Allison! Even in the
young confusion of that moment it pierced me, humbled me in adoring love
before you. "Allison, speak," I said, and I could scarcely get out the
words. "Do you love me?" and you, stammering like a child, said, "I
don't know, William. I don't know." "Then at least you do not love any
other man?" I asked you, and you shook your head.

Oh, Allison, if I come home to find that some other man has taught you
love, how shall I live through the burden of my days!

WILLIAM.

July, '65.

My Allison:

Here I sit in verity at my window and write. I shall never speak,
after all; for now I know that I haven't the right. The wound was
fatal, it seems, and I have only a short time to live, so I dare not
tell you until after I am gone. It would hurt you too much. Even now
I can scarcely bear to see your pity in your eyes. Suppose that pity
were to imagine itself love! When I am myself, my whole being rejects
that thought. It is not such love I dreamed to win from you, my Allison.
Then again there are moments, weak moments, when I would have anything,
take you at any price, only to have you nearer, only to wring those
brief hours of warmth and sunshine from the cold outstretched hand of
death. But that is only weakness. Such sad companionship with oncoming
death shall not be for you, my be