Sometimes at night she thought she saw old Annemie. "But what if I do?"
she said to herself; "Annemie never will hurt me."
And now, as she grew nearer her goal, her natural buoyancy of spirit
returned as it had never done to her since the evening that he had kissed
and left her. As her body grew lighter and more exhausted, her fancy grew
keener and more dominant. All things of the earth and air spoke to her as
she went along as they had used to do. All that she had learned from the
books in the long cold months came to her clear and wonderful. She was
not so very ignorant now--ignorant, indeed, beside him--but still knowing
something that would make her able to read to him if he liked it, and to
understand if he talked of grave things.
She had no fixed thought of what she would be to him when she reached
him.
She fancied she would wait on him, and tend him, and make him well, and
be caressed by him, and get all gracious pretty things of leaf and
blossom about him, and kneel at his feet, and be quite happy if he only
touched her now and then with his lips;--her thoughts went no further
than that;--her love for him was of that intensity and absorption in
which nothing But itself is remembered.
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