You gather a magnificent bouquet to send her and tie it with a green ribbon, and love knot—and get a little rose-bud in acknowledgment. _That_ day, you pass the tall boy with a very patronizing look; and wonder if he would not like to have a sail in _your_ boat?
But by and by you find the tall boy walking with her again; and she looks sideways at him, and with a kind of grown-up air, that makes you feel very boylike, and humble and furious. And you look daggers at him when you pass; and touch your cap to her, with quite uncommon dignity; and wonder if he is not sorry, and does not feel very badly, to have got such a look from you?
On some other day, however, you meet her alone; and the sight of her makes your face wear a genial, sunny air; and you talk a little sadly about your fears and your jealousies; she seems a little sad, and a little glad, together; and is sorry she has made you feel badly—and you are sorry too. And with this pleasant twin sorrow, you are knit together again—closer than ever. That one little tear of hers has been worth more to you than a thousand smiles. Now you love her madly; you could swear it—swear it to her, or swear it to the universe. You even say as much to some kind old friend at nightfall; but your mention of her is tremulous and joyful—with a kind of bound in your speech, as if the heart worked too quick for the tongue; and as if the lips were ashamed to be passing over such secrets of the soul, to the mere sense of hearing. At this stage you can not trust yourself to speak her praises or if you venture, the expletives fly away with your thought before you can chain it into language; and your speech, at your best endeavor, is but a succession of broken superlatives that you are ashamed of. You strain for language that will scald the thought of her; but hot as you can make it, it falls back upon your heated fancy like a cold shower.
Heat so intense as this consumes very fast; and the matter it feeds fastest on is—judgment; and with judgment gone, there is room for jealousy to creep in. You grow petulant at another sight of that tall boy; and the one tear, which cured your first petulance, will not cure it now. You let a little of your fever break out in speech—a speech which you go home to mourn over. But she knows nothing of the mourning, while she knows very much of the anger. Vain tears are very apt to breed pride; and when you go again with your petulance, you will find your rosy-lipped girl taking her first studies in dignity.