CHAPTER XIII.
CHRISTIAN'S ELSA It was about this time, and after we had made our quarrel up, that Helene began to call me "Great Brother." After all, there is manifest virtue in a name, and the Little Playmate seemed to find great comfort in thus addressing me.
And after that I had called her "Little Sister" once or twice she was greatly assured and treated me quite differently, having ascertained that between young men and women there is the utmost safety in such a relationship.
And as all ways were alike to me, I was willing enough.

For indeed I loved her and none other, and so did all the days of my life.

Though I know that my actions and conceits were not always conformable to the true love that was in my heart, neither wholly worthy of my dear maid.
But, then, what would you?
Nineteen and the follies of one's youth! The mercy of God rather than any virtue in me kept these from being not only infinitely more numerous, but infinitely worse.

Yet I had better confess them, such as they are, in this place.

For it was some such nothings as those which follow that first brought Helene and me into one way of thinking, though by paths very devious indeed.
To begin with the earliest.