I had seen her, and it was with her father she
was riding.
I do not believe I slept a minute that night through thinking
of her, and feeling glad that I was near her, and that she had
been riding with her father.
When the early dawn began to break an idea brighter than the
dawn broke upon me: I would get up and go nearer to her. It is
amazing how much we lose by not getting up early on the long
summer days. How beautiful the morning might be on this earth I
never knew until I found myself wandering by the edge of my woods
and over my lawn with the tender gray-blue sky above me and all
the freshness of the grass and flowers and trees about me, the
birds singing among the branches, and she sleeping sweetly
somewhere within that house with its softly defined lights and
shadows. How I wished I knew what room she occupied!
The beauties and joys of that hour were lost to every person
on the place, who were all, no doubt, in their soundest sleep. I
did not even see a dog. Quietly and stealthily stepping from
bush to hedge, I went around the house, and as I drew near the
barn I fancied I could hear from a little room adjoining it
the snores of the coachman. The lazy rascal would probably not
awaken for two or three hours yet, but I would ran no risks, and
in half an hour I had sped away.
Now I knew exactly why I was staying at the house of the
miller. I was doing so in order that I might go early in the
mornings to my own home, in which the girl I loved lay dreaming,
and that for the rest of the day and much of the night I might
think of her.
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