You, I think, began to do just things consciously, as the burden of manhood began in you.  I love to think of you growing by degrees till you could carry your head so—­and no other way; so that, looking at you, I can promise myself you never did a mean thing, and never consciously an unjust thing except to yourself.  I can just fancy that fault in you.  But, whatever—­I love you for it more and more, and am proud knowing you and finding that we are to become friends.  For it is that, and no less than that, now.

I love you; and me you like cordially:  and that is enough.  I need not look behind it, for already I have no way to repay you for the happiness this brings me.

I.

Oh, I think greatly of you, my dear; and it takes long thinking.  Not merely such a quantity of thought, but such a quality, makes so hard a day’s work that by the end of it I am quite drowsy.  Bless me, dearest; all to-day has belonged to you; and to-morrow, I know, waits to become yours without the asking:  just as without the asking I too am yours.  I wish it were more possible for us to give service to those we love.  I am most glad because I see you so often:  but I come and go in your life empty-handed, though I have so much to give away.  Thoughts, the best I have, I give you:  I cannot empty my brain of them.  Some day you shall think well of me.—­That is a vow, dear friend,—­you whom I love so much!

J.

I have not had to alter any thought ever formed about you, Beloved; I have only had to deepen it—­that is all.  You grow, but you remain.  I have heard people talk about you, generally kindly; but what they think of you is often wrong.  I do not say anything, but I am glad, and so sure that I know you better.  If my mind is so clear about you, it shows that you are good for me.  Now for nearly three months I may not see you again; but all that time you will be growing in my heart; and at the end without another word from you I shall find that I know you better than before.  Is that strange?  It is because I love you:  love is knowledge—­blind knowledge, not wanting eyes.  I only hope that I shall keep in your memory the kind place you have given me.  You are almost my friend now, and I know it.  You do not know that I love you.

K.

Beloved:  You love me!  I know it now, and bless the sun and the moon and the stars for the dear certainty of it.  And I ask you now, O heart that has opened to me, have I once been unhappy or impatient while this good thing has been withheld from me?  Indeed my love for you has occupied me too completely:  I have been so glad to find how much there is to learn in a good heart deeply unconscious of its own goodness.  You have employed me as I wish I may be employed all the days of my life:  and now my beloved employer has given me the wages I did not ask.