of the leaves, as he crushed them between his
fingers, evoked a swift memory of Gabriella in one of her soft moods,
saying over and over, "I love you! Oh, I do love you!" At the image his
temper changed as if by magic, and crossing the room, he bent down and
kissed her with a fierceness that bruised her lips.

"I adore you, Gabriella," he said.

Though she had seen these sudden changes in him before, she had never
grown wholly used to them. Her deeper nature, with its tranquil
brightness, untroubled by passing storms, was unprepared for the shallow
violence which swept over him, leaving no visible trace of its passage.
No, she could not understand him--she could only hope that after they
were married the blindness would pass from her love, and she would
attain that completer knowledge for which she was striving so patiently.
The transforming miracle of marriage, she trusted, would reveal this
mystery, with so many others.

"How can you hurt me so, George?" she asked with reproachful tenderness.

"It's because you are so stubborn, darling. If you weren't so stubborn I
shouldn't do it. Do you know you get almost mulish at times," he added,
laughing, while she moved nearer and rubbed her cheek softly against his
sleeve.

"You frighten me," she whispered. "I was just beginning to believe that
you really meant it."

"Oh, lovers always quarrel. There's nothing in that."

"But I hate to see you angry. It would almost kill me if it lasted
longer than a minute. Never let it last, will you, George?"

"Of course not, Goosey. It never has lasted, has it?"

"Goosey" was one of his favourite names for her. He liked it because it
gave him a merry feeling of superiority when he said it, and Gabriella
liked it for perhaps the same reason. In the first ardour of her
self-surrender she caught eagerly at any straw that she might cast on
the flame of her passion.

"And I'm not really stubborn, dear. Tell me that I'm not really
stubborn."

"You darling! I was only teasing you."

"I'll do a

Martha Finley (1828 - 1909) was a teacher and author of numerous works, the most well known being the 28 volume Elsie Dinsmore series which was published over a span of 38 years. The daughter of Presbyterian minister Dr. James Brown Finley and his wife and cousin Maria Theresa Brown Finley, she was born on April 26th, 1828 in Chillicothe, Ohio. Finley wrote many of her books under the psodonym Martha Farquharson. She died in 1909 in Elkton, Maryland, where she moved in 1876.

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