CHAPTER II
the drowned and the runaway
N this way love's first seed was sown in them. Call it love or give it any other name, it matters not. Only sixteen springs have smiled upon our hero and our heroine is a tiny girl of eight! But no love is so sweet as that which springs from tender hearts.
Early love, it seems, has a curse upon it. How many of those whom you loved in your younger days, you meet in your youth? How many do live to see your youthful days? How many, again, still deserve your love? In old age nothing but the recollection of early love lingers in our memory. But how sweet is that recollection! Every boy, without exception, feels, sometime or other, that yonder girl has an exceptionally sweet face, and that her eyes have some unspeakable charms in them. How often he turns away from his play and looks at her face—how often he lies in wait, in her way, to steal a glance at her. He is never conscious of the feeling, but nevertheless he loves her. Later on, that sweet face
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