'Tis not so;
something will come out of it and follow you wherever you go and hurt
and break you at last. But if you make it a friend and care for it, it
will care for you and give you happiness and deliver you from evil."
Then touching Johnnie's cheeks with his gloved hand he got on his horse
and rode away, and no sooner was he gone than Marty started up, and hand
in hand the two children set off at a run down the long slope.
Johnnie's playtime was nearly over then, for by and by he was taken as
farmer's boy at one of the village farms. When he was nineteen years
old, one Sunday evening, when standing in the road with other young
people of the village, youths and girls, it was powerfully borne on his
mind that his old playmate Marty was not only the prettiest and best
girl in the place, but that she had something which set her apart and
far, far above all other women. For now, after having known her
intimately from his first years, he had suddenly fallen in love with
her, a feeling which caused him to shiver in a kind of ecstasy, yet made
him miserable, since it had purged his sight and made him see, too, how
far apart they were and how hopeless his case.
Pages:
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139