daughter, like me, was an only child; and, like me, she had no
playfellows. We met in our wanderings on the solitary shores of
the lake. Beginning by being inseparable companions, we ripened
and developed into true lovers. Our preliminary courtship
concluded, we next proposed (before I returned to school) to
burst into complete maturity by becoming man and wife.

I am not writing in jest. Absurd as it may appear to "sensible
people," we two children were lovers, if ever there were lovers
yet.

We had no pleasures apart from the one all-sufficient pleasure
which we found in each other's society. We objected to the night,
because it parted us. We entreated our parents, on either side,
to let us sleep in the same room. I was angry with my mother, and
Mary was disappointed in her father, when they laughed at us, and
wondered what we should want next. Looking onward, from those
days to the days of my manhood, I can vividly recall such hours
of happiness as have fallen to my share. But I remember no
delights of that later time comparable to the exquisite and
enduring pleasure that filled my young being when I walked with
Mary in the woods; when I sailed with Mary in my boat on the
lake; when I met Mary, after the cruel separation of the night,
and flew into her open arms as if we had been parted for months
and months together.

What was the attraction that drew us so closely one to the other,
at an age when the sexual sympathies lay dormant in her and in
me?