to endure the rain, the cold, the travel! And, so I shall never be
able to fill your life with mine as you fill mine with yours. As time
passes, I shall fill it less and less. Every spring nature will be
just as young to you; I shall be always older. The water you love
ripples, never wrinkles. I shall cease rippling and begin wrinkling.
No matter what happens, each summer the birds get fresh feathers; only
think how my old ones will never drop out. I shall want you to go on
with your work. If I am to be your wife, I must be wings to you. But
think of compelling me to furnish you the wings with which to leave me!
What is a little book on Kentucky birds in comparison with my
happiness!"

She was so deeply moved that my one desire was to uproot her fears on
the spot.

"Then there shall be no little book on Kentucky birds!" I cried. "I'll
throw these things into the fire as soon as I go home. Only say what
you wish me to be, Georgiana," I continued, laughing, "and I'll be
it--if it's the town pump."

"Then if I could only be the town well," she said, with a poor little
effort to make a heavy heart all at once go merrily again.

Bent on making it go merrily as long as I shall live, the following day
I called out to her at the window:

"Georgiana, I'm improving. I'm getting along."

"What do you mean?" she asked.