Ah! Miss Emily," he said,
as he rose and walked to and fro, "I shall sometime breathe and act as I
want to. I pray every day that my little mother may live to see me doing
what I desire to do, and, also, for strength. I need great strength,
Miss Emily. You will help to keep little mother alive, I know you will."
And he came back, took both my hands in his own; I felt almost afraid--I
cannot tell you how powerfully expressive his look, voice and gestures
were, and he continued:
"I like you--like you more than you know; you are true, you can be
depended on; you call my little mother your fairy cousin, and I call you
her royal friend. Do me a favor," he continued, "unbind your massive
hair and let it trail over your shoulders." And before I realised it my
hair swept the doorstone where I sat. "There," as he brushed it back
from my face, "look up and you are a picture; wear your long hair
floating--why not?"
"Oh, Louis," I said, "how could I ever work with such a heavy mass about
me. If, as you say, I look like a picture, I certainly ought not to, for
I am only a country dandelion even as a picture," and I laughed. He
looked at me almost fiercely, as he said:
"Miss Emily, never say it again; you are full of poetry; you have
glorious thoughts; you dream while at work; some day you will know
yourself;" and then there came the far-away look in his eyes. Clara came
to sit with us, and the evening wore itself into night's deep shading,
and the early hour for rest came to us all.
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