now, it has been only un acces de nerfs, very common to hysterical girls, and too near to delirium for us quite to believe what may then be said;"-after he had galloped with a reckless speed to his own home, and had sought the solitude of his library—it was then that he first suffered his thoughts to dwell on the astounding confession that had met his ear. But even then he did not indulge in the bewildering reflections it involved, longer than was requisite for coming to some decided plan of action. That done, it was banished with the asceticism of a De Sales.

The next morning St. Colmo rode over early to The Cedars; and entered the hall as Miss Mavesyn was leaving the breakfastroom. She started on seeing him; and her cheeks which were unusually pale, seemed still more to fade as she addressed him;

while a timid but inquiring glance appeared to seek to discover the reason of his visit.

On their reaching the drawing-room, they found Mrs. Beresford just unveiling her work for the day. After the greeting, Colonel St. Colmo said gravely that he had come at that early hour for an interview with Miss Mavesyn, and must ask her to favour him by allowing it to be private.

Mrs. Beresford withdrew; and there was now a pause of as painful a nature to the two present as can be conceived. For her, there was the uncertainty of his purpose, and the consequent embarrassment. For him, there was the difficulty in making that purpose known without abruptness; and the dread that in the desire to be gentle he should cease to be firm.

She had seated herself on a sofa, while he remained standing at some distance, near the

window by which Mrs. Beresford's frame rested; but to address her he must approach, and the act seemed one of torture. It is extraordinary what trifling circumstances will sometimes increase sensations of embarrassment. To say all that he had now to say to Miss Mavesyn, the Colonel felt that he himself must be seated. To stand erect before her with his lofty figure, would give all his words the air of an oration; while to place himself by her side on the sofa was impossible: it would have upset all that he had imposed on himself. To take a chair before her would be as bad. To have knelt by her side; to have pressed his aching brow against her shoulder; to have encircled her with his arms, and wept forth all that was swelling in his over-charged heart, would have been what poets have called the "luxury of woe," but it was denied to him.

Scarcely daring to look at her, as she sat with timid and inquiring eyes occasionally upturned towards him, while her little soft white hands—which usually, in their graceful quietude, presented so true a symbol of her gentle and tranquil mind-were at one moment twisted together, at another grasping in their agitation the folds of her dress, or the cushion of the sofa on which she rested; the Colonel at last placed a chair at the round table in the centre of the room, and with something of the pathos of a nervous dentist, asked her to take that seat. She obeyed, and he placed himself in a chair on the opposite side of the table. They still kept silence; but notwithstanding there was much trepidation visible; and a slight pamphletcutter which he took up, told of the agitation of his spirit, by being shivered to pieces in the nervous grasp he gave it. He threw it

from him without one word of regret at the fracture, thus betraying more clearly the abstraction of his thoughts, and sat with his face buried in his hands.

"You are angry with me, and too merciful to tell me so," at length Miss Mavesyn said, hesitatingly.

"all

"Oh, no! no!" he answered eagerly; this boyish nonsense is from the difficulty I feel in telling you, that under other circumstances, the idea to which your words of yesterday gave rise, would have sufficed for a life of happiness. All that I know of your sweet, gentle, loving self "-here the Colonel stopped point blank, feeling exactly the difficulty all people must feel, who out of an overwhelming quantity-whatever it may beintend but little to escape. How could he tell her in composed and measured terms that he felt flattered by her preference; that he