I also thought so this time last year, in our last winter holidays.

I thought so then; and though I loved her as a child, I kept it to myself.

Now she is a woman, and so thinking I have spoken to her as one.

I have told her that I loved her, as I now tell you that come what may I must continue to do so.

Had she made me believe that I was indifferent to her, absence, perhaps, and distance might have taught me to forget her.