From that day forth, Alan and Herminia met frequently. Alan was

given to sketching, and he sketched a great deal in his idle times

on the common. He translated the cottages from real estate into

poetry. On such occasions, Herminia's walks often led her in the

same direction. For Herminia was frank; she liked the young man,

and, the truth having made her free, she knew no reason why she

should avoid or pretend to avoid his company. She had no fear of

that sordid impersonal goddess who rules Philistia; it mattered not

to her what "people said," or whether or not they said anything

about her. "Aiunt: quid aiunt? aiant," was her motto. Could she

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have known to a certainty that her meetings on the common with Alan

Merrick had excited unfavorable comment among the old ladies of

Holmwood, the point would have seemed to her unworthy of an

emancipated soul's consideration. She could estimate at its true

worth the value of all human criticism upon human action.

So, day after day, she met Alan Merrick, half by accident, half by

design, on the slopes of the Holmwood. They talked much together,

for Alan liked her and understood her. His heart went out to her.

Compact of like clay, he knew the meaning of her hopes and

aspirations. Often as he sketched he would look up and wait,

expecting to catch the faint sound of her light step, or see her

lithe figure poised breezy against the sky on the neighboring

ridges. Whenever she drew near, his pulse thrilled at her coming,--

a somewhat unusual experience with Alan Merrick. For Alan, though

a pure soul in his way, and mixed of the finer paste, was not quite

like those best of men, who are, so to speak, born married. A man

with an innate genius for loving and being loved cannot long remain

single. He MUST marry young; or at least, if he does not marry, he

must find a companion, a woman to his heart, a help that is meet

for him. What is commonly called prudence in such concerns is only

another name for vice and cruelty. The purest and best of men

necessarily mate themselves before they are twenty. As a rule, it

is the selfish, the mean, the calculating, who wait, as they say,

"till they can afford to marry." That vile phrase scarcely veils

hidden depths of depravity. A man who is really a man, and who has

a genius for loving, must love from the very first, and must feel

himself surrounded by those who love him. 'Tis the first necessity

of life to him; bread, meat, raiment, a house, an income, rank far

second to that prime want in the good man's economy.




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