Never had I seen Annie so stirred into joyousness by George’s presence as she seemed to be by this boy’s.  The two together overflowed in a sparkling current of gayety, which was irresistible.  They seemed two divine children sent out on a mission to set the world at play.  What Edward Neal’s more sensuous and material nature lacked, was supplied by the finer, subtler quality of Annie’s.  From that first day I could never disguise from myself that they seemed, so far as mere physical life goes, the absolute counterparts of each other.

I need not dwell on this part of my story.  When young hearts are drawing together, summer days speed on very swiftly.  George Ware, alas! was kept at the West week after week, until it came to be month after month.  My uncle and aunt seemed deliberately to shut their eyes to the drift of events.  I think they were so thankful to watch Annie’s bounding health and happiness, to hear glad voices and merry laughs echoing all day in their house, that they could not allow themselves to ask whether a new kernel of bitterness, of danger, lay at the core of all this fair seeming.  As for the children, they did not know that they were loving each other as man and woman.  Edward Neal was only twenty-one, Annie but nineteen, and both were singularly young and innocent of soul.

And so it came to be once more the early autumn; the maple leaves were beginning to be red, and my chrysanthemums had again set their tiny round disks of buds.  Edward, and Annie had said no word of love to each other, but the whole town looked on them as lovers, and people began to reply impatiently and incredulously to our assurances that no engagement existed.

Early in October George came home, very unexpectedly, taking even his mother by surprise.  He told me afterwards that he came at last as one warned of God.  A presentiment of evil, against which he had struggled for weeks, finally so overwhelmed him that he set off for home without half an hour’s delay.  I found him, on the night after his arrival, sitting in his old place in the big arm-chair at the head of Annie’s lounge; she still clung to some of her old invalid ways, and spent many evenings curled up like a half-shut pink rose on the green damask cushions.  He looked worn and thin, but glad and eager, and was giving a lively account of his Western experiences when the library door opened, and coming in unannounced, with the freedom of one at home, Edward Neal entered.

“O Edward, here is Cousin George,” exclaimed Annie, while a wave of rosy color spread over her face, and half rising, she took George’s hand in hers as she leaned towards Edward.

“Oh, I’m so glad to see you, Mr. Ware,” said Edward, with that indefinable tone of gentle respect which marks a very young man’s recognition of one much older, whom he has been led to admire.  “Annie has been talking to me about you all summer.  I feel as if I knew you almost as well as she does.  I’m heartily glad to see you.”