up his card, and Miss Loring returned for
answer, that she would see him in a few moments. Full five minutes
elapsed before she left her room. It had taken her nearly all that
time to school her agitated feelings; for on seeing his name, her
heart had leaped with an irrepressible impulse. She looked down into
her heart, and questioned as to the meaning of this disturbance. The
response was clear. Paul Hendrickson was more to her than any living
man!

"He should have spared me an interview, alone," she said to herself.
"Better for both of us not to meet."

This was her state of feeling, when after repressing, as far as
possible, every unruly emotion, she left her room and took her way
down stairs.

"Is not this imprudent?" The mental question arrested the footsteps
of Miss Loring, ere she had proceeded five paces from the door of
her chamber.

"Is not what imprudent?" was answered back in her thoughts.

"What folly is this!" she said, in self-rebuke, and passed onward.

"Miss Loring!" There was too much feeling in Hendrickson's manner.
But its repression, under the circumstances, was impossible.

"Mr. Hendrickson!" The voice of Miss Loring betrayed far more of
inward disturbance than she wished to appear.

Their hands met. They looked into each other's eyes--then stood for
some moments in mutual embarrassment.

"You are almost a stranger," said Jessie, conscious that any remark
was better, under the circumstances, than silence.

"Am I?" Hendrickson still held her hand, and still gazed into her
eyes. The ardor of his glances reminded her of duty and of danger.
Her hand disengaged itself from his--her eyes fell to the floor--a
deep crimson suffused her countenance. They seated themselves--she
on the sofa, and he on a chair drawn close beside, or rather nearly
in front of her. How heavily beat the maiden's heart! What a
pressure, almost to suffocation, was on her bosom! She felt an
impending sense of danger, but lacked the resolution to flee.

"Miss Loring," said Hendrickson, his unsteady voice betraying his
inward agitation, "when I last saw you"--

"Sir!" There was a sudden sternness in the young girl's voice, and a
glance of warning in her eye. But the visitor was not to be driven
from his purpose.

"It is _not_ too late, Jessie Loring!" He spoke with eagerness.

She made a motion as if about to rise, but he said in a tone that
restrained her.

"No, Miss Loring! You _must_ hear what I have to say to-n