Dropping his whip, Elliott leaned over and took Dorothy’s face between his hands bringing it close to his own, their hearts and lips together for one delicious moment. “Dorothy, we belong to each other,” he said, gazing straight into her eyes. She had been beautiful to him always, but loveliest now with the look of love thrilling her as he felt her tapering wrists close around his neck. “It seems as though I have loved you all my life, Elliott.” “Oh, if in loving me, the sweetness of you, the youth, the happiness should be wasted! Shall I always make you happy, I often ask myself. I want to know this, Dorothy, for I hope to make you my wife.” At the word “wife,” delicate vibrations glided through her, deepening into pulsations that were all a wonder and a wild delight, throbbing with the vigor of love and youth that drenched her soul with a rapturous sense. “Oh, Elliott! Elliott! You are mine. All mine.” CHAPTER XII. Happy weeks! Happy moons! uncounted days of uncounted joys! For Elliott and Dorothy the summer passed away in blissful Arcadian fashion. She was to him that most precious and sustaining of all good influences--a woman gently wise and kindly sympathetic, an influence such as weans men by the beauty of purity from committing grosser sins and elevates them above low tastes and its objects by the exquisite ineffable loftiness of soul, which is the noblest attribute of pure womanhood. There was a bond between these two, real eternal, independent of themselves, made not by man, but God. With the hope of sparing her father sorrow over the fact that another shared her affection, Dorothy did not at first tell him of her engagement, and Elliott was not unnaturally reticent about it, having so often heard that Mr. Carr would feel it a heavy blow to have his daughter leave him alone. September was now well advanced and the equinoctial storms were bold and bitter on the hills. Many trees succumbed to their violence, broken branches filled the roads and tall tree trunks showed their wounds. The long blue grass looked like the dishevelled fur of an animal that had been rubbed the wrong way. There were many runnels and washouts trending riverward in the loose soil. By the time the storm showed signs of abating, considerable damage had been done. Many barns, cabins and even houses were unroofed or blown down. Among other victims of the wind was Mr. Field, inasmuch as the old homestead which he had purchased of Elliott was one of the buildings wrecked.