I thought it better for me to make my approaches warily.

Even to have the gratification of gazing on one's heart's darling, it is not comfortable, for a sensitive person, to accept too often the courtesies of a hostess, by whom you are inwardly conscious that you are not welcomed.
Still, I did see her at home sometimes.
I used to go there, at first only occasionally; and then, when I found Mrs Clyde did not quite eat me up, in spite of her cold manner, I went regularly once a fortnight--always making my visit on the same day and at the same hour of the evening; so, that Min learnt to expect me when the evening came round, and told me that she would have recognised my modest knock at the door, out of a hundred others.
Sometimes she and her mother and myself were all alone; but, more frequently, other casual visitors would drop in, too, like me.
I liked the former evenings the best, however, as I had her all to myself, comparatively speaking.
I could then watch her varying moods more attentively--the tender solicitude and earnest affection she evinced for her mother:--the piquant coquetry with which she treated me.
She had such dear little, characteristic ways about her--ways that were quite peculiar to herself.
I got to know them all.
When she was specially interested in anything that one was saying, she would lean forwards, with a deep, reflective look in her clear grey eyes, in rapt attention, resting her little dimpled chin on her bent hand:--when she disagreed with something you said, she would make such a pretty quaint moue, tossing her head defiantly, and raise her curving eyebrows in astonishment that you should dare to differ from her.
She seldom laughed--I hate to hear girls continually giggling and guffawing at the merest nothings so long as they proceed from male lips! When Min laughed, her laughter was just like the rippling of silvery music and of the most catching, contagious nature.

She generally only smiled, at even the most humorous incidents; and her smile was the sweetest I ever saw in anyone.

It lit up her whole face with merriment, giving the grey eyes the most bewitching expression, and bringing into prominent notice a tiny, dear little dimple in her chin, which you might not have previously observed.
Her smile it was that completed my captivation, that first time that I saw her in church and lost my heart in a moment:--her smile was ever and always her greatest charm.
Of course I remember all her little darling ways and coquetries.
Love is a great master of the art of mnemonics, and might be quoted by Mr Stokes as one of the greatest "aids to memory" that is known.
Trifling trivialities, by others passed by unobserved, are graphically jotted down with indelible ink in his cordal note-book-- "For indeed I know Of no more subtle master under heaven, Than is the maiden passion for a maid." When no other people came in, Min would always, on the evening of my visit, make a rule of turning out her workbox, and arranging its contents over again--"in order," as she told me, although I had thought it the picture of neatness and tidiness in its original state.
She was in the habit on these occasions of restoring to her mother sundry little articles which she confessed to having purloined during the week.

I recollect how there used to be a regular little joke at her expense on the subject of kleptomania.
How well I remember that little workbox, and its arrangements! I could tell you, now, every item of its varied contents,--the perfumed sachet, the ugly little pincushion which she had had since dollhood, the little scraps from her favourite poets, which she had copied out and kept in this sacred repository, never revealing them save to sympathising eyes.
How angry she was with me once, for not thinking, with her, that Longfellow's "Psalm of Life" was the "nicest" thing ever written:--what a long time it was afterwards before she would again allow me to inspect her secret treasures and pet things, as she had previously permitted me to do! This all used to go on while her mother was playing; and then, when the workbox was arranged in apple-pie order, Min herself would go to the piano and sing my favourite ballads, I listening to her from the opposite corner of the room, for she hated having her music turned over by any one.
In addition to these rare opportunities of studying my darling and feeding my love for her, I used to see her at church every Sunday.
From her window, also, when dog Catch and I took our walks abroad, I often had a bright smile from "somebody," who happened always to be tending her cherished plants just at the moment when I passed by.
Sometimes, too, I met her at Miss Pimpernell's, or out walking:--thus, in a short time, I learnt to know all her little plans and wishes, and her sentiments about everything.
Her likes and dislikes were my own.