* * * * * When I got home that night I burned Dorothy Armstrong 's photograph . The next day I went to my cousin Tom , who owns the fashionable studio of Croyden and , binding him over to secrecy , sought one of Marian 's latest photographs from him . It is the only secret I have ever kept from my wife . Before we were married Marian told me something . `` I always remembered you as you looked that day under the pines , '' she said . `` I was only a child , but I think I loved you then and ever afterwards . When I dreamed my girl 's dream of love your face rose up before me . I had the advantage of you that I knew your name -- I had heard of you . When Peter wrote about you I knew who you were . That was why I agreed to correspond with you . I was afraid it was a forward -- an unwomanly thing to do . But it seemed my chance for happiness and I took it . I am glad I did . '' I did not answer in words , but lovers will know how I did answer . The Gossip of Valley View It was the first of April , and Julius Barrett , aged fourteen , perched on his father 's gatepost , watched ruefully the low descending sun , and counted that day lost . He had not succeeded in `` fooling '' a single person , although he had tried repeatedly . One and all , old and young , of his intended victims had been too wary for Julius . Hence , Julius was disgusted and ready for anything in the way of a stratagem or a spoil . The Barrett gatepost topped the highest hill in Valley View . Julius could see the entire settlement , from `` Young '' Thomas Everett 's farm , a mile to the west , to Adelia Williams 's weather-grey little house on a moonrise slope to the east .
He was gazing moodily down the muddy road when Dan Chester , homeward bound XXXXX the post office , came riding sloppily along on his grey mare and pulled up by the Barrett gate to hand a paper to Julius .
Before about although as for from of on that under