heart; my previous apprehensions vanished; I could not resign myself to the idea that my companion would not come back to me again.
'Alice! Alice! come! Can it be you will not come?' I shouted, for the last time.
A crow, who had been waked by my voice, suddenly darted upwards into a tree-top close by, and catching in the twigs, fluttered his wings. . . . But Alice did not appear.
With downcast head, I turned homewards. Already I could discern the black outlines of the willows on the pond's edge, and the light in my window peeped out at me through the apple-trees in the orchard — peeped at me, and hid again, like the eye of some man keeping watch on me — when suddenly I heard behind me the faint swish of the rapidly parted air, and something at once embraced and snatched me upward, as a buzzard pounces on and snatches up a quail. . . . It was Alice sweeping down upon me. I felt her cheek against my cheek, her enfolding arm about my body, and like a cutting cold her whisper pierced to my ear, 'Here I am.' I was frightened and delighted both at once. . . . We flew at no great height above the ground.
'You did not mean to come to-day? ' I said.
'And you were dull without me? You love me ? Oh, you are mine!'
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