My legs were still feeble, and I had leaned a little on her strong young arm as we came up the hill, but now she left me and climbed on a rock, where she sat like a pixie.

The hardships of the past had thinned her face and deepened her eyes, but her grace was the more manifest.

Fresh and dewy as morning, yet with a soul of steel and fire--surely no lovelier nymph ever graced a woodland.

I felt how rough and common was my own clay in contrast with her bright spirit.
"Elspeth," I said hoarsely, "once I told you what was in my heart." Her face grew grave.

"And have you not seen what is in mine ?" she asked.
"I have seen and rejoiced, and yet I doubt." "But why ?" she asked again.