"I don't know," impetuously; "but I knew I must come to you. It seems a million years ago since that hot morning in the old garden at Delisleville--when I had never seen her." "One of the things I have thought about a good deal," said Tom, with quite a practical manner, "has been love. I had lots of time to think over things at the Cross-roads, and I used to work them out as far as my mind would carry me. Love's as much an element as the rest of them. There's earth, air, fire, water--and love. It has to be calculated for. What I've reasoned out is that it has not been calculated for enough. It's going to _come_ to all of us--and it will either come and stay, and make the old earth bloom with flowers--or it will come and go, and leave it like a plain swept by fire. It's not a trivial thing that only boys and girls play with; it's better--and worse. It ought to be prepared for and treated well. It's not often treated well. People have got into the way of expecting trouble and tragedy to come out of it. We are always hearing of its unhappiness in books. Poets write about it that way." "I suppose it is often unhappy," said Rupert; "but just now it seems as if it _could_ not be." "What _I've_ been wanting to see," said Tom, "is young love come up like a flower and be given its dew and sun and rain--and bloom and bloom its best." He drew a big sigh. "That poor child who lies on the hillside under the pines," he went on, "Sheba's mother--hers was young love--and it brought tragedy and death. Delia," his voice was unsteady, "your mother's was young love, and her heart was broken. No, it's not often well treated. And when you and Sheba came to me that night with your boy and girl eyes shining with gladness just because you had met each other, I said to myself, 'By the Lord, here is what it springs from. Perhaps it may come to them; I wonder if it will?'" "You thought it might, even then," Rupert cried. "Yes, I did," was Tom's answer. "You were young--you were drawn together--it seemed natural. I used to watch you, and think it over, making a kind of picture to myself of how it would be if two young things could meet each other and join hands and wander on among roses until they reached the gate of life--and it swung open for them and they passed through and found another paradise." He stopped a second and turned to look at Rupert's dreamy face with a smile not all humorous. "I'm a sentimental chap for my size," he added. "That's what I wanted for Sheba and you--that's what I want. That sort of thing was left out of my life; but I should like to see it before I'm done with. Good God! why can't people be _happy_? I want people to be _happy_." The boy was trembling. "Uncle Tom," he said, "Sheba and I are happy to-night." "Then God have mercy on the soul of the man who would spoil it for you," said Big Tom, with actual solemnity. "I'm not that man. You two just go on being happy; try and make up for what your two mothers had to bear."