It
is only I who can divert her mind, by reading aloud to her and
singing; and sometimes I paint the flowers she loves the best on
card-board with water-colors. I have a poor skill in it, but Cousin
Evelina can tell which flower I have tried to represent, and it
pleases her greatly. I have even seen her smile. No, I cannot leave
her, nor even pester her with telling her before another spring, and
you must wait, Thomas," said young Evelina.
And Thomas agreed, as he was likely to do to all which she proposed
which touched not his own sense of right and honor. Young Evelina
gave Thomas one more kiss for his earnest pleading, and that night
wrote out the tale in her journal. "It may be that I overstepped the
bounds of maidenly decorum," wrote Evelina, "but my heart did so
entreat me," and no blame whatever did she lay upon Thomas.
Young Evelina opened her heart only to her journal, and her cousin
was told nothing, and had little cause for suspicion. Thomas Merriam
never came to the house to see his sweetheart; he never walked home
with her from meeting. Both were anxious to avoid village gossip,
until the elder Evelina could be told.
Often in the summer evenings the lovers met, and strolled hand in
hand across the fields, and parted at the garden gate with the one
kiss which Evelina allowed, and that was all.
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