my face with greedy love. "How pale you are, Nell, and how pretty—prettier than when you went away, I think!"
"No, no." I say, while a pained, miserable flush creeps slowly up to my brow; "I never was anything to look at, George; no one ever thought so but you."
"Did they not?" he says quickly. "I am glad of that. I grudge every admiring look a man casts on you, Nell. I wish you could not be fair in any one's eyes but mine, then they would not want to take you away from me."
"That is kind to me," I say, smiling. "However, you have your wish; no one ever wanted to take me away from you."
"Thank God!" he says, with a deep thanksgiving in his voice that is almost solemn. "And so you have come back to me, my own little sweetheart, never to go away from me any more!"
"Hush!" I say, turning deadly pale. "Is not that papa?"
"I don't care if it is—Nell———"
"I am going now," I say, starting back. "I cannot stay now. To-morrow afternoon at four I will be by the brook."
"To-morrow!" he says below his breath; and the rapture in his eyes makes me shiver. "I have waited so long, dear, and now———" and on his face is a look of such utter, pure content as makes his beauty something to marvel at.
Ay, to-morrow! and ere the sun has set a few words will have dashed it all out—all the sweetness of his hope's fruition—all the reward of his long, faithful service; and never, I wish, on this side of the grave, will my lover's face again wear the look it wears to-night. . . . Somehow I creep away and up to my own room, where a bitter anguish tears and rends me. Heavier than all the pain I have suffered is this task set to my hand; and until to-night I have thought almost lightly of his misery, wearily and continually of my own. Human beings are very selfish—the pain they do not see they do not believe in or heed; it must be placed
