eneath hers. Even should he be triumphant, he was
not perfectly assured that his triumph would be a success.

"Shall what be all one?" she asked.

"Shall it be your house and my house? Can you tell me that you will
love me and be my wife?" Again she looked at him, and he repeated his
question. "Clara, can you love me well enough to take me for your
husband?"

"I can," she said. Why should she hesitate, and play the coy girl,
and pretend to any doubts in her mind which did not exist there?
She did love him, and had so told herself with much earnestness. To
him, while his words had been doubtful,--while he had simply played
at making love to her, she had given no hint of the state of her
affections. She had so carried herself before him as to make him
doubt whether success could be possible for him. But now,--why should
she hesitate now? It was as she had hoped,--or as she had hardly
dared to hope. He did love her. "I can," she said; and then, before
he could speak again, she repeated her words with more emphasis.
"Indeed I can; with all my heart."

As regarded herself, she was quite equal to the occasion; but had she
known more of the inner feelings of men and women in general, she
would have been slower to show her own. What is there that any man
desires,--any man or any woman,--that does not lose half its value
when it is found to be easy of access and easy of possession? Wine is
valued by its price, not its flavour. Open your doors freely to Jones
and Smith, and Jones and Smith will not care to enter them. Shut your
doors obdurately against the same gentlemen, and they will use all
their little diplomacy to effect an entrance. Captain Aylmer, when he
heard the hearty tone of the girl's answer, already began almost to
doubt whether it was wise on his part to devote the innermost bin of
his cellar to wine that was so cheap.

Not that he had any idea of receding. Principle, if not love,
prevented that. "Then the question about the house is decided," he
said, giving his hand to Clara as he spoke.

"I don't care a bit about the house now," she answered.

"That's unkind."

"I am thinking so much more of you,--of you and of myself. What does
an old house matter?"

"It's in very good repair," said Captain Aylmer.

"You must not laugh at me," she said; and in truth he was not
laughing at her. "What I mean is that anything about a house is
indifferent to me now. It is as though I had got all that I want in
the wor