He wondered how he could have been so long blind to it . He knew that he must have loved her ever since their first meeting that May evening in the old orchard . And he knew that he must choose between two alternatives -- either he must never go to the orchard again , or he must go as an avowed lover to woo him a wife . Worldly prudence , his inheritance from a long line of thrifty , cool-headed ancestors , was strong in Eric , and he did not yield easily or speedily to the dictates of his passion . All night he struggled against the new emotions that threatened to sweep away the `` common sense '' which David Baker had bade him take with him when he went a-wooing . Would not a marriage with Kilmeny Gordon be an unwise thing from any standpoint ? Then something stronger and greater and more vital than wisdom or unwisdom rose up in him and mastered him . Kilmeny , beautiful , dumb Kilmeny was , as he had once involuntarily thought , `` the one maid '' for him . Nothing should part them . The mere idea of never seeing her again was so unbearable that he laughed at himself for having counted it a possible alternative . `` If I can win Kilmeny 's love I shall ask her to be my wife , '' he said , looking out of the window to the dark , southwestern hill beyond which lay his orchard . The velvet sky over it was still starry ; but the water of the harbour was beginning to grow silvery in the reflection of the dawn that was breaking in the east . `` Her misfortune will only make her dearer to me . I can not realize that a month ago I did not know her . It seems to me that she has been a part of my life for ever . I wonder if she was grieved that I did not go to the orchard last night -- if she waited for me . If she does , she does not know it herself yet . It will be my sweet task to teach her what love means , and no man has ever had a lovelier , purer , pupil . '' At the annual school meeting , the next afternoon , the trustees asked Eric to take the Lindsay school for the following year . He consented unhesitatingly .
That evening he went to Mrs. Williamson , XXXXX she washed her tea dishes in the kitchen .
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