In their daily walks about the village she would tell the little boy
endless stories about incidents which had befallen Ida at this spot or
that. She was never weary of telling, or he of listening to, these tales,
and it was wonderful how the artless sympathy of the child comforted the
lone woman.

One day, when he was eight years old, finding himself alone in the
sitting-room, the lad, after contemplating Ida's picture for a long time,
piled one chair on another, and climbing upon the structure, put up his
chubby lips to the painted lips of the portrait and kissed them with
right good-will. Just then Miss Ludington came in, and saw what he was
doing. Seizing him in her arms, she cried over him and kissed him till he
was thoroughly frightened.

A year or two later, on his announcing one day his intention to marry Ida
when he grew up, Miss Ludington explained to him that she was dead. He
was quite overcome with grief at this intelligence, and for a long time
refused to be comforted.

And so it was, that never straying beyond the confines of the eerie
village, and having no companion but Miss Ludington, the boy fell
scarcely less than she under the influence of the beautiful girl who was
the presiding genius of the place.

As he grew older, far from losing its charm, Ida's picture laid upon him
a new spell. Her violet eyes lighted his first love-dreams. She became
his ideal of feminine loveliness, drawing to herself, as the sun draws
mist, all the sentiment and dawning passion of the youth. In a word, he
fell in love with her.