eferred me to you for the
answer. And now will you tell me, in all frankness and honesty, your mind
on the matter?"

She grew deadly pale as I spoke these words, then suddenly flushed up
again, but said not a word. I could perceive, however, from her heaving
chest and restless manner, that no common agitation was stirring her bosom.
It was cruelty to be silent, so I continued:--

"One who loves you well, Baby, dear, has asked his own heart the question,
and learned that without you he has no chance of happiness; that your
bright eyes are to him bluer than the deep sky above him; that your soft
voice, your winning smile--and what a smile it is!--have taught him that he
loves, nay, adores you! Then, dearest--what pretty fingers those are! Ah,
what is this? Whence came that emerald? I never saw that ring before,
Baby!"

"Oh, that," said she, blushing deeply,--"that is a ring the foolish
creature Sparks gave me a couple of days ago; but I don't like it--I don't
intend to keep it."

So saying, she endeavored to draw it from her finger, but in vain.

"But why, Baby, why take it off? Is it to give him the pleasure of putting
it on again? There, don't look angry; we must not fall out, surely."

"No, Charley, if you are not vexed with me--if you are not--"

"No, no, my dear Baby; nothing of the kind. Sparks was quite right in not
trusting his entire fortune to my diplomacy; but at least, he ought to have
told me that he had opened the negotiation. Now, the question simply is:
Do you love him? or rather, because that shortens matters: Will you accept
him?"

"Love who?"

"Love whom? Why Sparks, to be sure!"

A flash of indignant surprise passed across her features, now pale as
marble; her lips were slightly parted, her large full eyes were fixed
upon me steadfastly, and her hand, which I had held in mine, she suddenly
withdrew from my grasp.

"And so--and so it is of Mr. Sparks's cause you are so ardently the
advocate?" she said at length, after a pause of most awkward duration.

"Why, of course, my dear cousin. It was at his suit and solicitation I
called on your father; it was he himself who entreated me to take this
step; it was he--"

But before I could conclude, she burst into a torrent of tears and rushed
from the room.

Here was a situation! What the deuce was the matter? Did she, or did she
not, care for him? Was her pride or her delicacy hurt at my being made the
means of the communication to her father?