Chapter 5

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.

"Oh, happy love, where love like this is found! Oh, heart-felt raptures, bliss beyond compare! I've paced this weary mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare, If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, One cordial in this melancholy vale, 'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair In other's arms breathe out the tender tale, Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale."

Donald and Minnie had grown up together. They had shared in the social life of the village. They had been to little parties together. They had gone to the same church, sat in the same pew, sang the psalms from the same book. They had walked out together in the summer evenings, and both had felt the influence of the white moonlight which steeped the trees along the Marsden road. They had, so to say, appropriated each other, and yet there had been no word of love between them. They had spoken freely to each other; their hands had touched, and both had thrilled at the contact, and yet they were only friends! The village had settled it that they were lovers and that they would be married, and felt satisfied with its own decision, because both were popular.

It was a summer afternoon, and they were in the woods together. Minnie had a basket for wild strawberries. None had been gathered. They were seated at the trunk of a tree. Donald had told her that he thought of leaving the country, and she felt stunned. Her heart stopped. She became as pale as death.

"Yes, Minnie," he said, "I am tired of this life. I want away. I want to push my fortune. What is there here for me? What future is there for me? I want to go to the States. I can get along there. This life is too dull and narrow, and all the young fellows have left."

"Perhaps I feel too that it is a little dull, Donald," Minnie said, "but not being a man, I suppose desires like yours would seem improper When you go," and her voice trembled a little, "I will feel the dullness all the more keenly."

"And do you think it will not cost me an effort to sever our friendship?" Donald said with emotion; "we have been playmates in childhood and friends in riper years. I have been so accustomed to you that to leave you will seem like moving into darkness out of sunlight. Minnie," he went on, taking her hand, and speaking with fervor, "can we only be friends? We say that we are friends; but in my heart I have always loved you. When I began to love you I know not. I feel now that I cannot leave without telling you. Yes, Minnie, I love you, and you only; and it was the hope of bettering my prospects only to ask you to share them, that induced me to think of leaving. But I cannot leave without letting you know what I feel. Just be frank with me, and tell me, do you return my love? I cannot see your face. What! tears! Minnie, Minnie, my darling, you