Let Us Go In Allan

At last there came a day--the most blessed of my life, when we told our
love. We had been together all the morning, but after dinner Mr. Carson
was so unwell that Stella stopped in with him. At supper we met again,
and after supper, when she had put little Tota, to whom she had grown
much attached, to bed, we went out, leaving Mr. Carson dozing on the
couch.

The night was warm and lovely, and without speaking we walked up the
garden to the orange grove and sat down upon a rock. There was a little
breeze which shook the petals of the orange blooms over us in showers,
and bore their delicate fragrance far and wide. Silence reigned around,
broken only by the sound of the falling waterfalls that now died to a
faint murmur, and now, as the wavering breeze turned, boomed loudly
in our ears. The moon was not yet visible, but already the dark clouds
which floated through the sky above us--for there had been rain--showed
a glow of silver, telling us that she shone brightly behind the peak.
Stella began to talk in her low, gentle voice, speaking to me of her
life in the wilderness, how she had grown to love it, how her mind had
gone on from idea to idea, and how she pictured the great rushing world
that she had never seen as it was reflected to her from the books which
she had read. It was a curious vision of life that she had: things were
out of proportion to it; it was more like a dream than a reality--a
mirage than the actual face of things. The idea of great cities, and
especially of London, had a kind of fascination for her: she could
scarcely realize the rush, the roar and hurry, the hard crowds of men
and women, strangers to each other, feverishly seeking for wealth and
pleasure beneath a murky sky, and treading one another down in the fury
of their competition.