The Bow of Orange Ribbon - Page 42/189

But nothing is a wonder in love, or else it would have been amazing that

Joanna did not notice the rose absent from her sister's dress after

Captain Hyde's departure; nor yet that Katherine, ere she went to rest

that night, kissed fervently a tiny bit of paper which she hid within

the silver clasps of her Kirk Bible. The loving girl thought it no wrong

to put it there; she even hoped that some kind of blessing or sanction

might come through such sacred keeping; and she went to sleep

whispering to herself,--"Happy I am. Me he loves; me he loves; me only

he loves; me forever he loves!"