During the years from eight to twelve I was very desperately in love with a girl three years older than I, but about the same size. She was a very beautiful girl with expressive brown eyes and dark but clear complexion. She liked me very much, and it was understood among our playmates that we were lovers, although we were more reserved toward each other than we were toward any of the other school children. I do not know how my secret was discovered, because I had not told any one. I wouldn't have told her for anything. I couldn't have. It was very embarrassing for me to speak to her, although in Blackman I always tried to catch her, and usually succeeded for she didn't try very hard to get away. In playing “I Spy,” if I was “it,” I always allowed her to get to the home goal without spying her. In other games, such as “Dropping the Handkerchief” or choosing games she was the one whom I favored. Any little courtesy that I could show her filled me with keen delight, although I never wanted her to take any notice of it. I wanted her to understand it but not to mention it. The secret understanding between us was not the embarrassing thing,--it was any expression of our love toward each other that we could not stand; any reference to it by others was also very embarrassing. I do not think either of us was teased much. I could not easily keep my eyes off of her during school sessions, and in the recitations, if I chanced to sit or stand by her, I was very nervous and could feel my heart beating with great violence. I never corrected her in class, and have purposely missed many a word in spelling to keep from turning her down. I never wrote her a note nor in any way confessed my love for her except in such acts as those which I have enumerated. She moved away from our town when I was twelve. I grieved over it for a year or more,--until I fell in love with another girl. This was my first adolescent love, and came over me with great power. The girl was about my own age and loved me as much as I did her. During the first year of this love we were both somewhat shy. We wrote notes and made the most extravagant confessions on paper, but would carefully avoid such in our conversations. In the choosing games we nearly always chose each other. In the kissing games I was the only boy whom she would kiss. There was one other boy whom she would allow to kiss her. I was very jealous of him although he was my chum. At fourteen we had passed our shy stage, and then became very demonstrative and sought each other's company outside of school. We exchanged love-letters very frequently. Some of these were twenty to thirty pages long, and were more poetic and beautiful than anything that I have been able to write since. I have some of them yet, and read them with much pleasure. My love