"Have I? Tell me how, dearest Yoletta."

"By asking questions, and saying wild, meaningless things while I sat
there watching the setting sun. It troubled me and spoiled my pleasure;
but I will forgive you, Smith, because I love you. Do you not think I
love you enough? You are very dear to me--dearer every day." And drawing
down my face she kissed my lips.

"Darling, you make me happy again," I returned, "for if your love
increases every day, the time will perhaps come when you will understand
me, and be all I wish to me."

"What is it that you wish?" she questioned.

"That you should be mine--mine alone, wholly mine--and give yourself to
me, body and soul."

She continued gazing up into my eyes. "In a sense we do, I suppose, give
ourselves, body and soul, to those we love," she said. "And if you are
not yet satisfied that I have given myself to you in that way, you must
wait patiently, saying and doing nothing willfully to alienate my heart,
until the time arrives when my love will be equal to your desire. Come,"
she added, and, rising, pulled me up by the hand.

Silently, and somewhat pensively, we started hand in hand on our walk
down the hill. Presently she dropped on her knees, and opening the grass
with her hands, displayed a small, slender bud, on a round, smooth stem,
springing without leaves from the soil. "Do you see!" she said, looking
up at me with a bright smile.