Dare you meet my eye, and tell me
that?"
"Yes," she exclaimed, boldly stepping out into the moonlight, and
meeting my eye with a steady gaze; but slowly and gradually the tears
_would_ gather, her underlip _would_ quiver, and with a sudden
movement she turned around, and burst out weeping.
"Oh, no! I cannot! I cannot!" she sobbed, sinking down upon the green
sod.
I stood long gazing mournfully at her, while the sobs shook her
frame; there was a child-like, hearty _abandon_ in her grief, which
eased my mind, for it told me that her infatuation was not so
hopeless, nor her hurt so great as I had feared.
* * * * *
The next evening when dinner was at an end, Mr. Pfeifer proposed a
walk in the park. Hildegard pleaded a headache, and wished to be
excused.
"Nonsense, child," said Pfeifer, with his usual good-humored
peremptoriness. "If you have a headache, so much the more ought you to
go. Put on your things now, and don't keep us waiting any longer than
you can help."
Hildegard submitted with demure listlessness, and soon re-appeared in
her walking costume.
The daylight had faded, and the evening was in its softest, most
ethereal mood. The moon was drifting lazily among the light summer
clouds, gazing down upon the many-voiced tumult of the crowded city,
with that calm philosophic abstraction which always characterizes the
moon, as if she, up there in her airy heights, were so infinitely
exalted above all the distracting problems and doubts that harass our
poor human existence.
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