Her energy was in the slowness; but for inimitable strength, I felt she would have run, she would have flown to me.

Still, as she approached, she kept her eyes lowered to the ground; and when she had drawn quite near, it was without one glance that she addressed me.

At the first note of her voice I started.

It was for this I had been waiting; this was the last test of my love.

And lo, her enunciation was precise and clear, not lisping and incomplete like that of her family; and the voice, though deeper than usual with women, was still both youthful and womanly.