So fair, so wonderful, so entrancing, lay the view that evening at the foot of Captain’s Hill, yet Wrestling Brewster, albeit a man of singular delicacy of perception, never saw it; saw nothing, in fact, but the lissome form of a young maid clothed in white samite, with pale golden hair wound around her head and held by quaint silver pins with crystal heads that now and again caught the light and sent it flashing back like the aureole of a saint. The great gray eyes, wide open beneath their level brows, were steadfastly fixed upon some point far out at sea, the vanishing point of earth’s curve, the point where the straightforward look of human eyes glides off the surface of the globe and penetrates the ether beyond. What vision arose before the maiden’s eyes in that dim horizon realm? What thought or what dream parted the soft mouth, and tinged the pure pallor of the cheek? What meant the sigh that just stirred the flower at her throat? So asked the heart of the young man standing motionless and devout in the edge of the little grove, until with the feeling of one who intrudes upon sacred mysteries he withdrew his gaze, and rustled the twigs of the shrub beside him. The girl turned quickly, and as she met his eyes smiled gently. “Oh, is it you, Ras? I’m glad you came.” “Are you, Lora? Are you glad I came? And I am glad that you are glad.” “’Tis so fair, so heavenly a scene that I would all I love might enjoy it as well as I.” “Lora! All you love, say you? Oh, Lora, do you love me?” “Ras! Nay, let us not speak of just ourselves; we are so little and the sky is so great.” “The sky, dear? But the sky and the sea and the forest, they are always here, and we may look at them all our lives long,--all our lives, Lora, our two lives that might be one.” The gray eyes, still full of dreams, still questioning the far-off depths of the skies beyond the sea, reluctantly turned and rested fearlessly upon the eager and troubled face of the young man. “What is it, Ras dear? Why are you so--so troubled is it? Why don’t you sit down here beside me and look as we have looked so often upon all this beauty? It was so good of you, Ras, to make this seat for me. It is the happiest place I know in all the world.” “Then make it happiest to me, darling, by letting it be the place of our betrothal. Oh, Lora, I thought you knew,--I thought you understood, and--and--yes, I even dared to hope that you, just in some far-off maidenly, saintly fashion, felt somewhat the love that devours me like death until I know for certain that it is returned, and then indeed shall I pass from death unto life. Speak, Lora,--speak for God’s dear sake, speak to me.” “But why are you so moved, Ras, and why after all these years of love and friendliness do you beg me as if I were some stranger to say that I love you?” “Lora! Lora! You break my heart!”