With the same desperate directness and simplicity with which he had approached her father, he now blurted out his whole heart to her.

He told her how he had loved her hopelessly from the first time that they had spoken together at the church picnic.

Did she remember it?
How he had sat and worshiped her, and nothing else, at church! How her voice in the church choir had sounded like an angel's; how his poverty and his uncertain future had kept him from seeing her often, lest he should be tempted to betray his hopeless passion.

How as soon as he realized that he had a position, that his love for her need not make her ridiculous to the world's eyes, he came to tell her ALL.

He did not even dare to hope! But she would HEAR him at least, would she not?
Indeed, there was no getting away from his boyish, simple, outspoken declaration.