As boy I had loved it , and as man . All the happiness that had ever been mine , and it was much , had come to blossom in the springtime . It was in the spring that Josephine and I had first loved each other , or , at least , had first come into the full knowledge that we loved . I think that we must have loved each other all our lives , and that each succeeding spring was a word in the revelation of that love , not to be understood until , in the fullness of time , the whole sentence was written out in that most beautiful of all beautiful springs . How beautiful it was ! And how beautiful she was ! I suppose every lover thinks that of his lass ; otherwise he is a poor sort of lover . But it was not only my eyes of love that made my dear lovely . She was slim and lithe as a young , white-stemmed birch tree ; her hair was like a soft , dusky cloud ; and her eyes were as blue as Avonlea harbor on a fair twilight , when all the sky is abloom over it . She had dark lashes , and a little red mouth that quivered when she was very sad or very happy , or when she loved very much -- quivered like a crimson rose too rudely shaken by the wind . At such times what was a man to do save kiss it ? The next spring we were married , and I brought her home to my gray old homestead on the gray old harbor shore . A lonely place for a young bride , said Avonlea people . Nay , it was not so . She was happy here , even in my absences . She loved the great , restless harbor and the vast , misty sea beyond ; she loved the tides , keeping their world-old tryst with the shore , and the gulls , and the croon of the waves , and the call of the winds in the fir woods at noon and even ; she loved the moonrises and the sunsets , and the clear , calm nights when the stars seemed to have fallen into the water and to be a little dizzy from such a fall . She loved these things , even as I did . No , she was never lonely here then . The third spring came , and our boy was born . We thought we had been happy before ; now we knew that we had only dreamed a pleasant dream of happiness , and had awakened to this exquisite reality .
We thought we had loved each other before ; now , as I looked into my wife 's pale face , blanched with its baptism of pain , and met the uplifted gaze of her blue eyes , aglow with the holy passion XXXXX motherhood , I knew we had only imagined what love might be .
As At beyond by for in into of until with