“John, I do not see all this. Below I see the green and gray and brown of earth, except off in the valley the silver thread-like rivulet. When I lift my eyes towards the sun I see only the clouds and the sky. That is all; though my face is fanned and my hair tousled by the south wind that whispers to me. Do you hear what the south wind says? You have never tousled it, John, except when as little children we played together; never so much as caught a button of your coat in a stray strand and only the wind has played sweetheart and kissed my face. Oh! You need not move over. But when you were at William and Mary’s and I climbed to John Calvin Rock—I like the name—you are not tempest-tossed like other men, but sail a stormless sea or ride too deep for tossing—and looked out upon the valley, I always saw the same, allowing for change of season and sky. But when I closed my eyes, I looked through the peep hole of the old partition and saw a little boy in homespun of oak-bark brown—and when I said ‘’ittle boy peek through,’ he would not peek, but sat on the church bench as a thing of bronze, doubtless greatly shocked at my frivolity. Then the same little fellow took me to the mountain top and showed me the valley and the kingdom of men below; and talked of things I did not understand, as he continues to do. Again it was the same little boy who was the knight of my first adventure, and without a show of fear wiped away my tears. Then we came to live in the Valley and he was my nearest neighbor and, though my own age, taught me more than the master. I have long since given up hope of escape from him. Why has it always been the same little boy?—because it is going to be the same man, John. Oh, John! John!” And her eyes were filled with tears and John wiped them away. That night John met Captain Fairfax as he was returning from looking after his horses, which had been grain-fed preparatory to continuing their journey in the morning; and without preliminary, as was his way, asked for his daughter.