And he came back, took both my hands in his own; I felt almost afraid--I
cannot tell you how powerfully expressive his look, voice and gestures
were, and he continued:

"I like you--like you more than you know; you are true, you can be
depended on; you call my little mother your fairy cousin, and I call you
her royal friend. Do me a favor," he continued, "unbind your massive
hair and let it trail over your shoulders." And before I realised it my
hair swept the doorstone where I sat. "There," as he brushed it back
from my face, "look up and you are a picture; wear your long hair
floating--why not?"

"Oh, Louis," I said, "how could I ever work with such a heavy mass about
me. If, as you say, I look like a picture, I certainly ought not to, for
I am only a country dandelion even as a picture," and I laughed. He
looked at me almost fiercely, as he said:

"Miss Emily, never say it again; you are full of poetry; you have
glorious thoughts; you dream while at work; some day you will know
yourself;" and then there came the far-away look in his eyes. Clara came
to sit with us, and the evening wore itself into night's deep shading,
and the early hour for rest came to us all. The professor was amiable
and willing to accord two weeks more of freedom to Louis, who seemed to
enjoy more every day; and when he entered upon his fourth week, said:

"He wished that week might hold a hundred days."

It seemed to me that since Clara came to us she had been the constant
cause of surprise either in one way or another. In herself, as an
individual, she was to me a problem of no little consequence and not