“Oh, my love! You said your heart flew out to me.” “You mustn’t be too exacting,” she whispered. “Why don’t you open your eyes, Ira? I am mad to read them.” “Yes, that’s it.” I held her closer still. “Ira, I shall never kiss you now, until you give me leave with your own lips.” She did not answer. Suddenly I saw a smile flicker on her mouth, and her long lids opened--just a crevice. “Richard!” she panted, “they never gave you leave.” “Yes, they did, they did. O! the world has gone by us, Ira, and we are left alone together in the old first heaven of things.” We sat together presently, very unwisely, in the snow under the old hawthorn--at least I sat on the snow and Ira on me. But we were both content. “My poor umbrella,” she said. “It was blown to pieces in my hand.” “What made you do such an insane thing--come out at all?” “Are you sorry I did?” “Sorry! Supposing I had not taken a walk? Supposing the cold had killed you?” “Would you have minded _very_ much, Richard?” This fond stichomythia! these amorous anglings for assurance and reassurance of love’s blisses! They are not for the wise to understand. I had not understood them myself an hour ago. Let me hide their memory away in that old old tabernacle of nature, where only the foolish and the selfsame smitten shall steal in to contemplate and adore. Ira accounted to me for her rashness. The sight of Lady Skene’s restless anguish--for the child, though better from that dread attack of two nights ago, was still in a parlous state--had in the end proved too much for her, and she had hurried out to forget herself in exercise and fresh air. Then, wandering on blindly in the snow, she had suddenly awakened to the knowledge that she was lost, and very cold, and that the wind and rushing flakes seemed all at once to have become things of animate wickedness, shutting her round and in, and barring every exit with spears of ice. “You must have been thinking very deeply, Ira, to have come so far without noticing. I wonder what about?” “Yes, Richard. When--when we think a good deal of something, I suppose something is a good deal in our thoughts, isn’t it?” “How aggravating of you! I was already pluming myself on a nice compliment. Well, _you_ have been in _my_ thoughts enough, I can tell you.” “Have I? That is why I have felt cold for such a time, I suppose.” “It sha’n’t be my fault if you feel cold ever again. Do you know what fools we are to sit here? I’m in a fine glow, myself; but how about you?” “O! your arms are about me.” “You ought to feel them like stove pipes, if they come anywhere near expressing their own ardour.” “Please be a little less violent in your language, Richard. Do you know you are rather a savage creature altogether.” “You shall tame me. I have had my excuses, Ira--I really have.” “I know, my dear lord. How shouldn’t I know indeed!” She put up a penitent mouth. Her sweetness and submission quite overcame me.