Lucina, however her heart might have been swerved for a season to its natural inclination of love, had never yet admitted a lover, for, when it came to that last alternative of open or closed doors, she had immediately been seized with an impulse of flight into her fastness of childhood and maidenhood.
But now, though she scarcely loved Jerome as yet, the power of her old dreams was over her again.

No one can over-estimate the tendency of the human soul towards old ways of happiness which it has not fully explored.
Lucina had begun, almost whether she would or not, to dream again those old sweet dreams, whose reality she had never yet tasted.

Had life ever broken in upon the dreams, had a word or a caress ever become a fact, it is probable she would have looked now upon it all as upon some childish fruit of delight, whose sweetness she had proved and exhausted to insipidity.

And this, with no disparagement to her, for the most faithful heart is in youth subject to growth and change, and not free as to the exercise of its own faithfulness.
Lucina that Sunday evening had put on one of her prettiest muslin frocks, cross-barred with fine pink flowers set between the bars.

She tied a pink ribbon around her waist, too, and wore her morocco shoes.
She looked down at the crisp flow of muslin over her knees, and thought if Jerome had known that she had put on that pretty dress, he would have been sure she wanted him to come.