The Broad Highway

"Fear, Peter?"

"We were so far out of the world, and--I longed to kiss you."

"And didn't, Peter."

"And didn't, Charmian, because we were so very far from the

world, and because you were so very much alone, and--"

"And because, Peter, because you are a gentle man and strong, as

the old locket says. And do you remember," she went on

hurriedly, laying her cool, restraining fingers on my eager lips,

"how I found you wearing that locket, and how you blundered and

stammered over it, and pretended to read your Homer?"

"And how you sang, to prevent me?"

"And how gravely you reproved me?"

"And how you called me a 'creature'?"

"And how you deserved it, sir--and grew more helpless and ill at

ease than ever, and how--just to flatter my vanity--you told me

I had 'glorious hair'?"

"And so you have," said I, kissing a curl at her temple; "when

you unbind it, my Charmian, it will cover you like a mantle."

Now when I said this, for some reason she glanced up at me,

sudden and shy, and blushed and slipped from my arms, and fled up

the path like a nymph.

So we presently entered the cottage, flushed and panting, and

laughing for sheer happiness. And now she rolled up her sleeves,

and set about preparing breakfast, laughing my assistance to

scorn, but growing mightily indignant when I would kiss her, yet

blushing and yielding, nevertheless. And while she bustled to

and fro (keeping well out of reach of my arm), she began to sing

in her soft voice to herself: "'In Scarlet town, where I was born,

There was a fair maid dwellin',

Made every youth cry Well-a-way!

Her name was Barbara Allen.'"

"Oh, Charmian! how wonderful you are!"

"'All in the merry month of May,

When green buds they were swellin'--'"

"Surely no woman ever had such beautiful arms! so round and soft

and white, Charmian." She turned upon me with a fork held up

admonishingly, but, meeting my look, her eyes wavered, and up

from throat to brow rushed a wave of burning crimson.

"Oh, Peter!--you make me--almost--afraid of you," she whispered,

and hid her face against my shoulder.

"Are you content to have married such a very poor man--to be the

wife of a village blacksmith?"

"Why, Peter--in all the world there never was such another

blacksmith as mine, and--and--there!--the kettle is boiling

over--"