I shook my hair forward to cover them, and played with the green leaves within my reach.
The awful space between me and this tall, stern, learned man seemed annihilated.

I had never seen him before, divested of the insignia of authority, beyond the walls of the academy.

I had always been compelled to look up to him before; now we were on a level, on the green sward of the wild-wood.

God above, nature around, no human faces near, no fear of man to check the promptings of ingenuous feeling.

Softly the folded flower petals of the heart began to unfurl.