"Well, the first thing I had to do, as you may suppose, to make me fit to look at her, was to wipe my eyes. I put my hand in my pocket; then my first hand in the breast pocket; then the other hand in the other pocket; and the slow-dawning awful truth became apparent, that here was a great brute of a curate, who had been crying like a baby, and had no handkerchief. A moment of keen despair followed--chased away by a vision of hope, in the shape of a little white cloud between me and the green grass. This cloud floated over a lady's hand, and was in fact a delicate handkerchief. I took it, and brought it to my eyes, which gratefully acknowledged the comfort. And the scent of the lavender--not lavender water, but the lavender itself, that puts you in mind of country churches, and old bibles, and dusky low-ceiled parlours on Sunday afternoons--the scent of the lavender was so pure and sweet, and lovely! It gave me courage. "'May I keep it?' I asked "'Yes. Keep it,' she answered. "'Will you take my arm now?' "For answer, she took my arm, and we entered the woods. It was a summer afternoon. The sun had outflanked the thick clouds of leaves that rendered the woods impregnable from overhead, and was now shining in, a little sideways, with that slumberous light belonging to summer afternoons, in which everything, mind and all, seems half asleep and all dreaming. "'Let me carry the jug,' I said. "'No,' she answered, with a light laugh; 'you would be sure to spill the cream, and spoil both your coat and mamma's tea.' "'Then put it down in this hollow till we come back.' "'It would be full of flies and beetles in a moment. Besides we won't come back this way, shall we? I can carry it quite well. Gentlemen don't like carrying things.' "I feared lest the tone the conversation had assumed, might lead me away from the resolution I had formed while kneeling in the lane. So, as usual with me, I rushed blindly on the performance. "'Miss Lizzie, I am a hypocritical and unhappy wretch.' "She looked up at me with a face full of compassionate sympathy. I could have lost myself in that gaze. But I would not be turned from my purpose, of which she had no design, though her look had almost the power; and, the floodgates of speech once opened, out it came, the whole confession I have made to you, in what form or manner, I found, the very first time I looked back upon the relation, that I had quite forgotten.