I seized the opportunity when she looking down and fell to watching her, at first stealthily, then more and more boldly. Her face struck me as even charming as on the previous evening; everything in it was so delicate, clever, and sweet.

She was sitting with her back to a window covered with a white blind, the sunshine, streaming in through the blind, shed a soft light over her fluffy golden curls, her innocent neck, her sloping shoulders, and tender rising bosom. I gazed at her, and how dear and near she was already to me! It seemed to me I had known her a long while and had never known anything or lived at all till I met her.

She was wearing a white dress; I would gladly, I felt, have kissed every fold of that dress. The tips of her little shoes peeped out from under her skirt.

"And here I am sitting before her," I thought, "I have made acquaintance with her. What happiness, my God!"

I could hardly keep from jumping up from my chair in ecstasy, but I only swung my legs a little like a small child who has been given sweets.

I was happy as a fish in water, and I could have stayed in that room for ever, have never left that place.

Her eyes were slowly lifted, and once more her clear eyes shone tenderly upon me, and again she smiled.

"How you look at me!" she said shyly, holding up a finger.

I blushed. "She understands it all and see it all," flashed through my mind. "And how could she fail to understand and see it all?"