My Allison, I signed myself last your William, and I called you mine. It is no bold assumption. Neither life nor death can make me other than yours, whether you will or not, neither can it make you any less mine. Isn't it our George William Curtis who said that the land belonged to his rich neighbor, but the view was his? No matter if I never touch your dear hands save as a friend, my Allison, you will still be mine, because I have divined the fine mysteries of your spirit. I am your worshiper and knight, whatever fate befalls us. "We needs must love the highest when we see it," says the new poet across the water. No truer words were ever spoken. So in that fine inner sense I am yours and you are mine whether you ever come to love me or not. To-day I found you chasing a butterfly in the garden. What a child you are still! You brushed me as you ran past, then, as you turned, ran almost into my arms. Ah, my Allison, you did not know how it set my heart beating when that loose strand of your hair blew across my face! Your cheeks were flushed, and you drew back laughing. "What do you want with the butterfly, Allison?" I asked. "You surely would not hurt it. If you throw your bonnet over it, you will break its wings." You looked at me with your great eyes. "I would not do that, William. I only wanted to see the gold spots on its wings." "You can do that best without touching it, my dear," I said. "A touch will destroy its gold dust." You looked at me with your pure eyes and said,--like a little child, yet you are almost a woman,--"Oh, William, I would not break its wings." And then sharply a thought struck me like a pang. Can I perhaps see you better with my soul's eyes, Allison, if you are never mine? Would I break _your_ wings in touching you? Are you something too fine and fair for human experience? It came like a presentiment then that you would never be mine in the dear common human way. Can it be so, dear love? No, no; I would have you when the hour comes. Despite the angel in your eyes, you were made to make fair a home, to know in all its phases a man's love, to hold your children in your arms,--children with eyes such as you have now,--and teach them such things as pure beings like you can teach to children. "Isn't it nice that they are butterflies last, William?" you said. "Suppose they had to grow brown and ugly and to move slowly, instead of flying, when they are old like people." "It is like life and death," I told you, although God knows I am no preacher. Perhaps it is because my body is at the war while my soul is in Beechwood that I must sometimes think these thoughts of death. Your eyes looked straight into mine then, with something like a reflection of heaven's light. Then again all at once they were a child's again, and you said: "Grandma's portrait in the hall is beautiful. She was sixteen then. But she isn't pretty any more."