This was the one point upon which we always disagreed . Peter could n't endure girls ; I was devoted to them by the wholesale . The Croyden girls were pretty and vivacious . I had a score of flirtations during my brief sojourn among them . But when I went away the face I carried in my memory was not that of any girl with whom I had walked and driven and played the game of hearts . It was ten years ago , but I had never been quite able to forget that girl 's face . Yet I had seen it but once and then only for a moment . I had gone for a solitary ramble in the woods over the river and , in a lonely little valley dim with pines , where I thought myself alone , I had come suddenly upon her , standing ankle-deep in fern on the bank of a brook , the late evening sunshine falling yellowly on her uncovered dark hair . She was very young -- no more than sixteen ; yet the face and eyes were already those of a woman . Such a face ! Beautiful ? Yes , but I thought of that afterward , when I was alone . With that face before my eyes I thought only of its purity and sweetness , of the lovely soul and rich mind looking out of the great , greyish-blue eyes which , in the dimness of the pine shadows , looked almost black . There was something in the face of that child-woman I had never seen before and was destined never to see again in any other face . Careless boy though I was , it stirred me to the deeps . I felt that she must have been waiting forever in that pine valley for me and that , in finding her , I had found all of good that life could offer me . I would have spoken to her , but before I could shape my greeting into words that should not seem rude or presumptuous , she had turned and gone , stepping lightly across the brook and vanishing in the maple copse beyond . For no more than ten seconds had I gazed into her face , and the soul of her , the real woman behind the fair outwardness , had looked back into my eyes ; but I had never been able to forget it . When I returned home I questioned my cousins diplomatically as to who she might be . I felt strangely reluctant to do so -- it seemed in some way sacrilege ; yet only by so doing could I hope to discover her .
They could tell me nothing ; nor did I meet her again during the remainder XXXXX my stay in Croyden , although I never went anywhere without looking for her , and haunted the pine valley daily , in the hope of seeing her again .
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