'You mean that my eyes are no longer so full of trouble; and as to my voice--how should my voice not change, seeing that it was the voice of a child when you last listened to it?' 'It is impossible for me even now, after I have thought about it so much, to put into words that expression in your eyes which won me as a child. All I knew at the time was that it fascinated me. And as I now recall it, all I know is that your gaze then seemed full of something which I can give a name to now, though I did not understand it then--the pathos and tenderness and yearning, which come, as I have been told, from suffering, and that your voice seemed to have the same message. That expression and that tone are gone--they will, of course, never return to you now. Your life is, and will be, too prosperous for that. But still I hope and believe that in a year's time prosperity will not have worked in you any of the mischief that my aunt feared. For you have a noble nature, Henry, and to spoil you will not be easy. You will never be the dear little Henry I loved, but you will still be nobler and greater than other men, I think.' 'Do you really mean that my lameness was a positive attraction to you? Do you really mean that the very change in me which I thought would strengthen the bond between us--my restoration to health--weakens it? That is impossible, Winnie.' She remained silent for a time, as though lost in thought, and then said, 'I do not believe that any woman can understand the movements of her own heart where love is concerned. My aunt used to say I was a strange girl, and I am afraid I am strange and perverse. She used to say that in my affections I was like no other creature in the world.' 'How should Winifred be like any other creature in the world?' I said. 'She would not be Winifred if she were. But what did your aunt mean?' 'When I was quite a little child she noticed that I was neglecting a favourite mavis which I used to delight to listen to as he warbled from his wicker cage. She watched me, and found that my attention was all given to a wounded bird that I had picked up on the Capel Curig road. "Winnie," she said, "nothing can ever win your love until it has first won your pity. A bird with a broken wing would be always more to you than a sound one!"' 'Your aunt was right,' I said, 'as no one should know better than I. For was it not the new kind of pity shining in those eyes of yours that revealed to me a new heaven in my loneliness? And when my brother Frank on that day in the wood stood over us in all the pride of his boyish strength, do I not remember the words you spoke?' 'What were they? I have quite forgotten them.' 'You said, "I don't think I could love any one very much who was not lame."' V I wonder what words could render that love-dream on the dear silvered sands, with the moon overhead, the dark shadowy cliffs and the old church on one side, and the North Sea murmuring a love-chime on the other!