With a little cry of joy, she threw out her hands and sprang towards him. Her forgotten skirt tripped her, and she would have fallen, but the quick arms of Barton were about her, and for an exquisite moment she abandoned herself fully to him. "Oh, Arthur, you have come to me!" Their lips found each other, the great mass of dark brown hair almost overflowed the light brown curls, and their glad tears mingled. "Julia! I am alive--awake! and you are in my arms! Your kiss has been on my lips! You love me!" "With my whole heart and soul!" "Oh, how blessed to die at this moment!" murmured Bart. "Would it not be more blessed to live, love?" she whispered. "And you have always loved me?" "Always--there--there!" with a touch of her lips at each word. "I thought--" "I know you did. You shall never, never think again--there!" She withdrew from his arms, and adjusted her skirt, and stood by him in her wondrous beauty, radiant with the great happiness that filled her heart. Barton was still confused, and looked with eyes wide open with amazement, partly at seeing her at all, partly at her marvellous beauty, which to him was seraphic, and more and most of all, at the revelation of her great love. "Oh Julia! How was this? how is this--this coming of Heaven to me; this marvel of your love?" "Did you really think, Arthur, that I had no eyes; that I had no ears; that I had no woman's heart? How could you think so meanly of me, and so meanly of yourself?" "But you so scorned me." "Hush! that was your word: it was not true; you were even then in my foolish girl's heart. Don't speak of that to me now; surely you must have known that that was all a mistake." "And you always loved me? How wonderful that we should meet here and to-day!" he said, unable to take his eyes from her. "You know the place and remember the day? Is it more marvellous, than that we should have been here before? I never knew how you found me then, and I am as much puzzled about your being here now. Father wrote us that you would come down with him to-morrow." "Tell me how _you_ come to be here, to-day, of all the things in the world?" said Bart. "Am I to tell first? Well, you see, I wanted to see Mrs. Wilder and Rose; I have not been to their house since last fall, and so, having nothing else to do, I rode over, and just thought we would come down here--didn't we, Prince?" "And so you call him Prince?" said Bart, who had recognized the horse. "Yes, and I will sometime tell you why, if you will tell me how you came here to-day."