282 I GO A -FISHING. 



went, but I was no better off than before. She did not 

 love Tom, or she would never have answered thus. But 

 did she love me? Would she marry me? Wouldn't she 

 receive the idea in just the same way? 



" I looked back. Tom was on the ground, had picked 

 up his whip, and had one foot in the stirrup, ready to 

 mount again. I gulped down my heart that was up in 

 my throat, and spoke out — 



" ' Sarah, will you marry me ?' 



" Philip, she turned her eyes again toward me — those 

 large brown eyes, those holy eyes — and blessed me with 

 their unutterably glorious gaze. To my dying hour I 

 shall not forget that gaze ; to all eternity it will remain 

 in my soul. She looked at me one look ; and whether it 

 was pity, sorrow, surprise, or love, I can not tell you, that 

 filled them and overflowed toward me from out their im- 

 measurable depths; but, Philip, it was the last light of 

 those eyes I ever saw — the last, the last. 



"Is there any thing left in that bottle? Thank you. 

 Just a glassful. You will not take any ? Then, by your 

 leave, I will finish it. My story is nearly ended, and I 

 will not keep you up much longer. 



" We had not noticed, so absorbed had we been in our 

 pleasant talk, that a black cloud had risen in the west 

 and obscured the sun, and covered the entire sky; and 

 even the sultry air had not called our attention to the 

 coming thunder-storm. 



" As she looked at me, even as she fixed her eyes on 

 mine, a flash, blinding and fierce, fell on the top of a 

 pine-tree by the road-side, not fifty yards from us, and 

 the crash of the thunder shook the foundations of the 

 hills. 



" For a moment all was dazzling, burning, blazing 



