“The words of love that Mr. Singleton poured into my ear that night sounded like the song of the nightingale. It soothed my poor, troubled heart, and seemed to gather the torn and bleeding fragments together and they grew with a new hope. I did not know that I was yearning to be loved, but I was. My soul was fed to its full. I had never before fully enjoyed Singleton’s protestations of love, but now they were as healing balm, and I was glad to lay my face on his shoulder and weep as a child weeps for its lost mother, while his strong arms encircled my form. With each loving word he gave me a firm but gentle pressure, which only made the shivers and sobs more delightfully thrilling, and while his own great heart throbbed in muffled accord with mine he kissed away my tears, smoothed back the straggling locks of hair which clung to my feverish face and softened my feelings in such a way that when he tenderly took me in his arms for the last time that night I felt that there had been a death and a birth at one and the same time, and that I was the mother of two children and those two were each named Love, and that in the act of burying one in the darkness of the cavern of despair the other Love had shed its light and been born into my soul. “From that on I wondered how a girl could be so foolish as to think she was in love with anyone until she had known at least more than one man. “Those were happy days,” said the girl with a sigh, as she glanced at the little picture. “And of course you and Mr. Singleton were married,” said I. “I will tell you all, everything,” she said, then hastily rising, she walked across the room and gazed out of the window. When she returned tears were glistening on her cheeks. I waited for her to continue, which she did after a moment. “Those were happy days; I mean the last days of Ned’s school, for we planned our future, at least my future. He graduated with highest honors and came to see me often during vacation. He had intended to settle in business somewhere before the next term of school commenced. He was just killing time for one summer, he said. He seemed to fully realize that his boyhood days were over and put in his time calling on me and writing to old college chums. “We were much surprised when the management of the institution of learning which he had attended offered him a chair in the college. He had never aspired to become identified with the faculty, but the honor was so great for a young man that he was not long in allowing his friends to persuade him to accept.