I knew not where I was. I had
forgot why I was happy; only I knew she stooped, and I felt her
cherish me to her face and bosom, and heard her words out of a
whirl.
"Davie," she was saying, "O, Davie, is this what you think of me!
Is it so that you were caring for poor me! O, Davie, Davie!"
With that she wept also, and our tears were commingled in a perfect
gladness.
It might have been ten in the day before I came to a clear sense of
what a mercy had befallen me; and sitting over against her, with
her hands in mine, gazed in her face, and laughed out loud for
pleasure like a child, and called her foolish and kind names. I
have never seen the place that looked so pretty as those bents by
Dunkirk; and the windmill sails, as they bobbed over the knowe,
were like a tune of music.
I know not how much longer we might have continued to forget all
else besides ourselves, had I not chanced upon a reference to her
father, which brought us to reality.
"My little friend," I was calling her again and again, rejoicing to
summon up the past by the sound of it, and to gaze across on her,
and to be a little distant--"My little friend, now you are mine
altogether; mine for good, my little friend and that man's no
longer at all.
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