What a strange question!" "Because," she said, "there seems to be a cloud--a shadow--between us that I do not remember to have existed before." "We are both older," he explained, "and the familiarity of childhood cannot exist when childhood ceases to be." "I would rather be a child forever than that you should change to me," she said, quickly.
"I think," he returned, gravely, "that the only change in me is that I admire you more than I have ever done" And these words filled her with the keenest sense of rapture yet they were but commonplace enough, if she had only realized it..