Springing ashore, I clasped her in my arms, but not in a way to shock any one’s modesty, for of all the cunning bowers Nature ever formed for lovers this was the fittest. Looking out on the great river, but apart, it was a place to seek, or to make the most of if by chance you met your love there, as in my case. Having many things to say, as lovers do, and will till the world ends, her errand was forgotten; but after a while recalling it—if that was really the thing that brought her—she gave me the letter, and together we fell to examining its superscription and seal, wondering the while who it was from and what it was all about. In this way our faces touched and our hands came in contact and lingered, loath to part, but not strangely, and as lovers should, you will say. There was no need of haste, it was plain, and, moreover, the getting of a letter was a thing to be treated with some formality. For, except as Uncle Job or Aunt Betty may have written me, I had never received such a thing before in all my life. The day, too, was one to invite idleness, and of lovers more especially. Above our heads great clouds, white as snow, floated slowly across the broad expanse, and on the bosom of the majestic river, a ripple here and a calm there, or maybe a bit of shadow, added to the placid beauty of the surroundings. About us soft winds stirred the leaves of the listening hawthorns, and from out the thicket beyond the road a thrush, awakened to life by our close proximity, called in impassioned notes for its absent mate. Lying outstretched on the yielding turf, I asked Constance to open the letter, and this that I might the better look upon her and listen to her sweet voice while she read. No way suspecting my reason for asking, the missive presently lay open in her lap; and in those days, you must know, letters were not hidden away in wrappers as now, but folded and sealed and the address inserted in some nook or corner left for the purpose. When she had torn the letter apart, we looked it over, but without deciphering any word till we reached the end, and there, coming to the name, we were so startled at what we saw that our heads came together with a bump as we exclaimed with one voice: "Aunt Jane!" Yes, Aunt Jane; for printed matter never was plainer, and this notwithstanding some tremor of the letters as if they had been put down with labor, if not with pain. Astonished, we looked into each other’s faces, for nothing so surprising as this had ever happened before to either of us. Glancing above the signature, our eyes caught the closing words, "With tender love," and seeing this, I cried out: "What can it mean, Constance? Surely something strange must have happened! Read what it says, and from the beginning!" Smoothing out the paper, she did as I asked, and this is the sad message the letter contained: