ad passed our shy stage, and then
became very demonstrative and sought each other's company outside
of school. We exchanged love-letters very frequently. Some of
these were twenty to thirty pages long, and were more poetic and
beautiful than anything that I have been able to write since. I
have some of them yet, and read them with much pleasure. My love
for this girl lasted through more than three years, during which
I was never absent from her home on Sunday. Our relations were
encouraged by her parents. We had the usual love quarrels and
temporary estrangements on account of jealousy, but they were
soon over. At seventeen I left that town to teach school in
another town fifteen miles away. She was attending school in the
academy. While I was away two of my rivals perfected a plot that
effected our estrangement. For a year we did not speak to each
other. Then there was a sort of reconciliation, but nothing could
undo the harm that had been done. I have not seen her for
thirteen years, but I still think of her very kindly and recall
our youthful romance as a pleasant and sacred memory.

W., 31. When I was about three years old a little boy of two
lived near us. Our parents were warm friends and encouraged the
love affair that soon sprang up between us. Our love was open and
quite as a matter of course, we were very demonstrative and not
in the least embarrassed by observers until I was about six, when
we became more shy. We played house, and were always man and
wife. Scarcely a day passed which we did not spend playing
together from morning until night. Neither of us cared anything
about playing with others. Once I remember as I was going home
from the store carrying a little basket, Walter's cousin, a boy
of about the same age, offered to carry it for me. He had no
sooner taken it than Walter overtook us and commanded him to give
him the basket saying that he _always_ took care of me. When the
young gallant refused to give up the basket Walter took it from
him and, putting it at a safe distance, proceeded to give him a
pounding. Then he took up the basket and walked home with me. I
remember that I enjoyed this scene very thoroughly. We were
almost inseparable for five years, when my family moved out West.
We exchanged gifts and promises of eternal love, but the parting
was