Sometimes, on the heights of these castles reared by her innocent imagination, she and Jerome put arms around each other's necks and embraced and kissed, and her mother sat close by and did not know.
She also did not know that often, when she had curled Lucina's hair with special care on the Sabbath day, and dressed her in her best frock, that her little daughter, demurely docile under her maternal hands, was eagerly wondering if Jerome would not think her pretty in her finery.
Of course, when Lucina was grown up, and went away to school, these childish love-dreams seemed quite lost and forgotten, in her awakening under the light of older life.

In those latter days Lucina had never thought about Jerome Edwards.

She had even, perhaps, had her heart touched, at least to a fancy of love, by the admiration of others.

It was whispered in the village that Lucina Merritt had had chances already.

However, if she had, she had waved them back upon the donors before they had been fairly given, with that gentlest compassion which would permit no need of itself.