papers, and then in a low tone he read these words to the girl:
AT MIDNIGHT
The burden of the winter
The year haa borne too long,
And oh, my heart is weary
For a springtime song!
The moonbeams shrink unwelcomed
From the frozen lake;
Of all the forest voices
There is but one awake
I seek thee, happy streamlet
That murmurest on thy way,
As a child in troubled slumber
Still dreaming of its play;
I ask thee where in thy journey
Thou seeest so fair a sight,
That thou hast joy and singing
All through the winter night.
Helen was silent for a few moments, then she said, “I think that is beautiful, Arthur; but it is not what I want.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“I should have liked it when you wrote it, but now the spring has come, and we must be happy. You have heard the springtime song.”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “and the streamlet has led me to the beautiful sight.”
“It is beautiful,” said Helen, gazing about her with that naive unconsciousness which “every wise man's son doth know” is one thing he may never trust in a woman. “It could not be more beautiful,” she added, “and you must write me something about it, instead of wandering around our pasture-pond on winter nights till your imagination turns it into a frozen lake.”
The young poet put away his papers rather suddenly at that, and Helen, after gazing at him for a moment, and laughing to herself, sprang up from the seat.
“Come!” she cried, “why are we sitting here, anyway, talking about all sorts of things, and forgetting the springtime altogether? I haven't been half as happy yet as I mean to be.”
She seemed to have forgotten her friend's twelve mile walk; but he had forgotten it too, just as he soon forgot the rather wintry reception of his little song. It was not possible for him to remain dull very long in the presence of the girl's glowing energy; for once upon her feet, Helen's dancing mood seemed to come back to her, if indeed it had ever more than half left her. The brooklet struck up the measure again, and the wind shook the trees far above them, to tell that it was still awake, and the girl was the very spirit of the springtime once more.
“Oh, Arthur,” she said as she led him down the path, “just think how happy I ought to be, to welcome all the old things after so long, and to find them all so beautiful; it is just as if the country had put on its finest dress to give me greeting, and I feel as if I were not half gay enough in return. Just think what this springtime is, how all over the country everything is growing and rejoicing; that is what I want you to put into the poem for me.”
And so she led him on into the forest, carried on by joy herself, and taking all things into her song. She did not notice that the young man's forehead was flushed, or that his hand was burning when she took it in hers as they walked; if she noticed it, she chose at any rate to pretend not to. She sang to him about the forest and the flowers, and some more of the merry song which she had sung before; then she stopped to shake her head at a saucy adder's tongue that thrust its yellow face up through the dead leaves at her feet, and to ask that wisest-looking of all flowers what secrets it knew about the spring-time. Later on they came to a place where the brook fled faster, sparkling brightly in the sunlight over its shallow bed of pebbles; it was only her runaway caroling that could keep pace with that, and so her glee mounted higher, the young man at her side half in a trance, watching her laughing face and drinking in the sound of her voice.
How long that might have lasted there is no telling, had it not been that the woods came to an end, disclosing more open fields and a village beyond. “We'd better not go any farther,” said Helen, laughing; “if any of the earth creatures should hear us carrying on they would not know it was 'Trunkenheit ohne Wein.'”
She stretched out her hand to her companion, and led him to a seat upon a fallen log nearby. “Poor boy,” she said, “I forgot that you were supposed to be tired.”
“It does not make any difference,” was the reply; “I hadn't thought of it.”
“There's no need to walk farther,” said Helen, “for I've seen all that I wish to see. How dear this walk ought to be to us, Arthur!”
“I do not know about you, Helen,” said the young man, “but it has been dear to me indeed. I could not tell you how many times I have walked over it, all alone, since you left; and I used to think about the many times I had walked it with you. You haven't forgotten, Helen, have you?”
“No,” said Helen.
“Not one?”
“Not one.”
The young man was resting his head upon his hand and gazing steadily at the girl.
“Do you remember, Helen—?” He stopped; and she turned with her bright clear eyes and gazed into his.
“Remember what?” she asked.
“Do you remember the last time we took it, Helen?”
She flushed a trifle, and half involuntarily turned her glance away again.
“Do you remember?” he asked again, seeing that she was silent.
“Yes, I remember,” said the girl, her voice lower—“But I'd rather you did not—.” She stopped short.
“You wish to forget it, Helen?” asked Arthur.
He was trembling with anxiety, and his hands, which were clasped about his knee, were twitching. “Oh, Helen, how can you?” he went on, his voice breaking. “Do you not remember the last night that we sat there by the spring, and you were going away, no one knew for how long—and how you told me that it was more than you could bear; and the promise that you made me? Oh, Helen!”
The girl gazed at him with a frightened look; he had sunk down upon his knee before her, and he caught her hand which lay upon the log at her side.
“Helen!” he cried, “you cannot mean to forget that? For that promise has been the one joy of my life, that for which I have labored so hard! My one hope, Helen! I came to-day to claim it, to tell you—”
And with a wild glance about her, the girl sprang to her feet, snatching her hand away from his.
“Arthur!” she cried; “Arthur, you must not speak to me so!”
