That Girl in Black by Mary Louisa Molesworth

It was in church I saw her first. She was seated some little way in front of me, somewhat to one side. My eyes had been roving about, I suppose, for I was only a boy, fifteen or thereabouts at most, and she was -- let me see -- she could not have been more than nine, though by the pose of her head, the dignity of the small figure altogether, the immaculate demeanour -- which said all over her, "I am in church, and behaving myself accordingly" -- one might well have taken her for at least five years older.

I remember positively starting when I first caught sight of her -- of _it_, I should rather say; for _her_, in the ordinary sense of seeing a person -- that is to say, her face -- I never once saw during the whole of the first stage of our one-sided acquaintance -- the first act of the drama, so to speak. The "it" was her hair. Never -- never before or since, I do verily believe, has such hair gladdened mortal eyes. "Golden" was no word for it, or, rather, was but one of the many words it suggested. It was in great floods of waving and wavering shades of reddish -- reddish, not _red_, mind you -- brown, dark brown. The mass of it was certainly dark, though the little golden lights gleamed out all over as you will see the sparkling threads of the precious metal ever and anon through the texture of some rich antique silk with which they are cunningly interwoven. I worried myself to find an adjective in any sense suitable for this marvellous colour, or colours; but it was no use, and at last, in a sort of despair, I hit upon the very inadequate but not unsuggestive one of "bronze. " It seemed to come a degree nearer it than any other, and it struck me, too, as not commonplace. From "bronze" I went a step further; I found I must have a name for her -- a same all my own, that no one would understand even if they heard it; and, half without knowing it, I slipped into calling her to myself, into thinking of my little lady-love as "Bronzie. " For I had fallen in love with her -- looking back now I am sure of it -- I had fallen in love with her in the sweet, vague, wholly ridiculous, wholly poetical way that a boy falls in love. And yet I had never seen her face; nay, stranger still, I did not want to see it!