hand, and pressed his lips to hers; he had early lost his mother;—he kissed for the first time in his life, and she did the same. Neither, could bear to break away, and when their lips parted it was only to close again. He trembled, but she was radiant and all aglow with blushes; she flung her arms about his neck, and clung like a child to him. And when they sat down together, and she could touch his hands, his hair, his pin, his neck-tie, all that she had been in the habit of surveying from a respectful distance; and when he begged her to say “thou” instead of “you,” and she could not; and when he tried to tell her how rich she had made his poor life from the first moment, and how long he had struggled against his feelings, determined that they should not check her progress; and then discovered that she was unable to take in or comprehend a single word he was uttering, and began to think himself there was not much sense in it either; but she wanted to go home with him at once, and he laughingly must beg her to wait a few days and then they could journey far away together; then they felt, then they said, as they sat among the trees, with fjord and mountain before them bathed in the sunset glow, that this was happiness.
