Then after supper, when the night had fallen, we would walk together in the garden and come at length to hear her father read aloud sometimes from the works of a poet, sometimes from history.

Or, if he did not feel well, Stella would read, and when this was done, Mr.Carson would celebrate a short form of prayer, and we would separate till the morning once more brought our happy hour of meeting.
So the weeks went by, and with every week I grew to know my darling better.

Often, I wonder now, if my fond fancy deceives me, or if indeed there are women as sweet and dear as she.

Was it solitude that had given such depth and gentleness to her?
Was it the long years of communing with Nature that had endowed her with such peculiar grace, the grace we find in opening flowers and budding trees?
Had she caught that murmuring voice from the sound of the streams which fall continually about her rocky home?
was it the tenderness of the evening sky beneath which she loved to walk, that lay like a shadow on her face, and the light of the evening stars that shone in her quiet eyes?
At the least to me she was the realization of that dream which haunts the sleep of sin-stained men; so my memory paints her, so I hope to find her when at last the sleep has rolled away and the fevered dreams are done.
At last there came a day--the most blessed of my life, when we told our love.

We had been together all the morning, but after dinner Mr.Carson was so unwell that Stella stopped in with him.